


to be just okay

by plinys



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Slow Build, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-10-17 03:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10585182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: In which, following the defeat of the Legion of Doom, Rip leaves the team to take time to discover himself. Except 'time' has a mind of its own and when a time storm damages the jumpship, Rip finds himself taken to times and places that all of one thing in common - Sara Lance.





	1. 1997

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from a quote from The Time Traveler's Wife, which (with some bonus ideas stolen from Doctor Who) was the inspiration for this fic. 
> 
> First time in a long while I'm writing a multi-chapter and I'm a bit nervous about that (so send good vibes my way), can't guarantee all chapters will be of similar length - in fact the next one is for sure going to be shorter - will depend on the year he ends up in.
> 
> (beta'd by the lovely [julia ](http://p0e-damer0n.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr)

Rip leaves, because he has to.

Because there is no place left for him on the Waverider. 

Because he needs a break, a chance to breathe, and remember why he started all of this in the first place. To mourn those he loved and lost, but never had a chance to due to his time as a film student and then under the control of the Legion of Doom. 

Because there’s a new Captain now, one more capable and better suited to lead the Legends than he ever was. One they look to for guidance and one that they can trust. One that wasn't tainted by the Time Master’s training. 

Because he thinks he might be falling in love with her and that scares him.

Because it's too soon and too much. 

He leaves. 

Making plans to head to a point in time that he’s never been involved with before, a new place, where he can lose himself to the flow of the world and have no chance of running into anyone he’s ever known before.

Which ends up being easier said than done. 

A time storm, because of course, there’s a time storm. 

They broke the first (and most important) rule of time travel and Rip had warned them but  _ nobody ever listened _ . 

It was not often that he missed the Time Masters but in this moment, with the green light of a time storm raging around him, he had to admit it would be nice to have a number of people trained in the art of time travel working together to correct this storm, before it got out of hand and wrecked all of time itself. 

“Gideon - stabilize the-” he starts, only to stop, because Gideon isn’t here. He’d left her with Sara, taken just the jumpship with its fully manual controls. The same jumpship that was currently being thrown about the timestream by a massive time storm that he would have to reluctantly admit that he had been apart of causing.  

Rip sits up straighter in the jumpship’s pilot seat.

_ So much for a nice break away from the mess that was traveling through time with the Legends.  _

The jumpship is meant to navigate small spaces, take short trips to and from places or run emergency missions, not fight an entire time storm. 

Even with all of Rip’s training, even with all the times he had been in the pilot’s seat, there’s no way to keep the jumpship in place, no way to reach his destination without possible risk of destroying the ship beyond repair. 

Falling out of the timestream and letting the storm pull him in a different direction gives him the best chance for there to be minimal damage to the ship. Which is why after a few minutes of trying to stabilize the ship, he lets it happen. Releasing his hands from the controls, he braces himself for impact. 

There go his vacation plans.

 

*

 

Crashing a time ship is never easy, the jumpship in particular isn’t meant for this - to be wrenched from the timestream and dropped in a new time period. It’s a near miracle that Rip manages to get the cloaking on the ship before anyone sees anything other than a rooftop garden being knocked over and loose bricks tumbling down onto the city below, setting off a car alarm. 

“Gideon, I need-”

_ Bloody hell _ .

There’s still no Gideon, of course. 

No Gideon. No ship. No team.

Just a jumpship, flashing its red emergency lights, with a cracked display, unable to read out exactly  _ what  _ time period he has fallen into. 

None of the readouts are good:

_ SHIELDS AT 56% _

_ CLOAKING AT 78% _

_ ON RESERVE POWER _

_ DAMAGE TO TIME DRIVE _

_ AUTOPILOT OFFLINE _

He tilts his head backwards, so that it hits the back of the pilot’s chair, letting out a sharp sigh. 

“Was a few days without this too much to ask for, honestly?”

Apparently, yes. 

Apparently, time itself was laughing at him.

Apparently, Rip Hunter getting a week off proved to be too much to ask for. 

Another alert flashes across the screen.

_ PROXIMITY ALERT _ . 

Apparently, he was not alone.

The jumpship is too damaged to tell him when or where he is, but he looks out the viewport and sees a city spread out before him. It could be any city in the world, any time past the 1960s. 

“Ah, that would be our proximity alert,” Rip says, entirely to himself, when he spots the other figure on the roof top.

No Gideon or the team to respond to him.

No one but him, and the small girl currently staring up at the jumpship, eyes wide with wonder and a baseball bat in her hands. His first thought is a pang of longing for his lost family. The girl looks about the same age Jonas had been when he -

Rip stucks in a sharp breath, before refocusing his mind on the task at hand. 

There would be time for that later, to reflect on everything that has come to pass.

For now.

There was a girl threatening his already damaged jumpship with a baseball bat. 

It was generally considered that revealing oneself to someone from another time period to be against the rules set up by the Time Masters. Time ships were to be parking discretely, cloaked, all all exits should be away from prying eyes.

But the Time Masters were gone.

And in the spirit of the Legends, Rip supposes he can ignore a few of them too. 

“What year is it?”

The girl, the child, is still staring at him and the ship, its cloaking clearly lower than the 78% that the display had read out. That meant internal damage too; a lot more repairs than Rip had the time or resources to fix in whatever time period this was. 

“Are you an alien?”

A question for a question.

He supposes that’s fair. 

“Do you have aliens already? In this universe first contact should have been around 2017-” 

_ 2017, for fuck’s sake fuck.  _

When he got back he would need to ask about that, because some horrible impression told him that the Legends had everything to do with the  _ first contact _ . 

“-It would be awfully convenient if this was 2017, but judging by your facial expression, I’m afraid it’s not, is it?”

Two blonde braids tumble down both  sides of her face, swishing back and forth as she shakes her head in response. Her grip on the baseball bat has not laxed in the slightest. 

“My daddy’s a cop,” she says suddenly. “If you try anything, he’ll arrest you! Or worse!”

“Or worse,” Rip echoes. 

“Mhmm, I’m also very tough!”

“Yes, I can see that, Miss…?”

“Sara.” 

_ Sara _ . 

A coincidence, surely. 

“Miss Sara, what year is it?” Rip asks once more. When she remains silent a moment longer, he sighs. “You seem like a smart young girl. You’ve probably noticed that, I’m not from around here... not from this time period. Presently my time ship is a little damaged, and it won’t tell me what year I’ve landed in, so I do need you to tell me that much.”

Sara seems to consider this. 

“Are you like the Doctor?” 

“I suppose, I am.” 

“You’re a Timelord? From Gallifrey? My sister watches this show! And sometimes I watch with her but-” 

“Well, not exactly-”

“So you  _ are _ an alien!”

“Miss Sara, I can assure you that I am not an alien. I am as human as you are. Admittedly, a human from the future with a very damaged time machine, who still desperately needs to know what year it is?”

“Oh. It’s 1997.”

Twenty years from 2017, where the team had been headed.

Sounds about right for a time storm. 

“Fantastic.” 

Sara seems to sense his tone. “What’s wrong with 1997?” she asks, in a terribly offended childish tone.

“Do you like 1997?”

Sara shrugs. “Kinda. Not the worst, right?”

“I suppose this is true, it’s just not where I intended to end up -”

She doesn’t ask where he was going. Childish curiosity not captured by asking about whatever demons he is running from or where he intends to travel too next. She was more caught up in everything around her.

Jonas was just like this, the first time he took his son on the Waverider, let him sit in the Captain’s chair and pretend to -

“If you’ll excuse me,” Rip says quickly, because he cannot stand there and allow himself to be caught up in memories.  “I need to check on my ship. You’re welcome to watch, as long as you promise to keep what you’ve seen up here our little secret. It’s very important, for the safety of the future.” 

Sara seems to accept this at face value. Nodding frantically, as she moves to set down the baseball bat and dart over towards him. She stops a few inches in front of him to hold out her pinky finger towards him. 

He laces it with his own a moment later. 

“Promise,” she insists, “Can I go inside your spaceship now?”

“Timeship.” 

“Same difference.” 

 

*

 

Fixing a timeship is never an easy task, he’d certainly been trained for the task, but there was a reason he delegated the duties of ship maintenance over to Jax - and not just because he was a mechanic with a love for new machines - rather because Rip was particularly awful at it.

If he had been on the Waverider he would at least have access to the necessary tools to fix the jumpship back up to make an emergency trip to 2017, where he knew he’d be able to get in contact with the team. 

Right now - he couldn’t even send of an emergency beacon. 

“What’s wrong?” Sara asks. Crawling down into the space under the control panel beside him. 

So much for being frightened of the potential  _ alien  _ stranger. 

Sara, still carrying her trusty baseball bat but in a less threatening position, had spent a good deal of time exploring the ship while Rip set to running repairs on it. She asked a variety of questions about how the ship worked, which Rip tried to answer in ways a child could understand without jeopardizing the entire future.

(He couldn’t help but answer her questions; childish fascination had always been a weakness of his.)

Clearly, she had gotten bored with exploring the jumpship - it was small, not big at all, not meant to serve as living quarters like the Waverider. It wasn’t meant to do much more than take one jump from the Waverider and then return back. 

“A number of things,” Rip explains, pointing out the glowing blue light coming from under the dashboard, “But most significantly, my time drive is fractured.” 

Sara reaches out towards the blue light and it’s only because of quick reflexes that he stops her hand, pulling her back just in time. 

“You cannot touch it. If you do, you’ll be scattered through time. Who knows where you’d end up.”

“Somewhere that’s not 1997?” she asks, with a note of something almost like longing in her voice. 

“I thought you said you liked 1997.” 

This pulls an overdramatic sigh from her lips, as she tugs her hand back to herself before crawling out from under the dash.

With one longing look at the time drive he has no easy way to fix, Rip does the same. 

When he emerges, Sara is curled up in the Captain’s chair of the jumpseat. Legs tucked under herself, head tilted backwards dramatically, that for a second - it strikes him so much of his Sara that he has to wonder if this really is a coincidence.

1997.

His Sara would be about ten, and in Star City. 

(Or  _ Starling  _ as it was called back then.)

An impulse decision, “Miss Lance?”

The girl - Sara,  _ his Sara _ , eighteen years before he’s supposed to have known her - jumps, eyes wide.

“How do you know my name?” 

“Because in my future, Sara Lance is a Legend.”

“A  _ Legend _ ?”

“An immortal badass, who happens to be Captain of her very own time ship, and has saved my life more times than I can count.” 

Sara laughs at that. Soft, light, and wonderful. As if the notion of her future is so abstract she cannot believe it to be more than a joke.  

“You don’t have to lie to me just because I’m ten.”

“I would never lie to you.”

“Sure you would, adults lie all the time. Laurel says they can’t help it.” 

He has no way to respond to that.

No way to even touch upon what is clearly a delicate subject for  _ his _ Sara.

“Speaking of your sister,” Rip says. “Do you think your family might be wondering where you’ve snuck off to?”

“Oh no! What time is it?”

Rip gestures vaguely with his hand, “I couldn’t even tell you the year let alone-”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Time Traveler, I need to go! My dad gets mad at me when I sneak up to the roof alone, but he was at work so I came to look at the stars! And now, I’m not sure -”

“Go home, you wouldn’t want you parents to worry.” 

Sara nods frantically, pushing herself up off of the chair and heading towards the jumpship’s door. 

“You’ll be here tomorrow night, right Mr. Time Traveler? I’ll bring you snacks or something for you ship or -”

“Snacks would be lovely, Miss Lance.”

She continues nodding.

It’s quite adorable. 

“Goodnight, Mr. Time Traveler.” 

“Goodnight, Miss Lance.” 

 

*

 

The time drive cannot be fixed.

At least not completely.

Which is not fine.

Not at all.

But he’s certain that after a day's work he can jerry rig it enough to drop himself 20 years in the future in which he’ll be able to get in contact with Oliver Queen or Barry Allen, either of which can get ahold of the Legends for him. 

Then he’ll sort out this whole  _ time storm  _ mess once and for all and never leave the team alone again for more than five minutes, because clearly they can’t handle themselves without destroying the very nature of time itself. 

In fact, he was confident enough in his patch that he had nearly left hours ago. 

He would have, had there not been a promise of snacks from someone the night before. 

He’s gotten his clock back online at least, can now tell the date, time, and location. 

He’s also managed to fix the cloaking device so that the ship looks undetectable from the empty roof around him, as long as someone doesn’t know  _ exactly  _ where to look.

Sara, it seems, appears to remember exactly where to look, because it’s just after ten when there’s a frantic knock on the jumpships door. 

This time she’s abandoned the baseball bat in favor of a bright pink backpack. 

“I snuck out as much as I could! Knew you’d be hungry, because there’s no food on your ship. I looked!”

She wasn’t wrong. 

He’d been so caught up on fixing the ship he hadn’t even thought about going to grab something to eat.

(He did bring rations with him when he left the ship, but the thought had simply never crossed his mind.)

“I also got other things!”

“Other things?” he asks.

He watches Sara settles into the Captain’s seat, like it belongs to her - which it does technically, but that was beyond the point. She opens up her backpack, pulling out a slightly dented box of breakfast cereal which she then pushes over to Rip. 

Followed by: a pink knit blanket, a small decorative pillow, a bottle of water, two packages of pop tarts, an apple, a bag of chocolates, a handful of teabags, a worn book and a roll of duct tape. 

A proper survival kit if he’d ever seen one. 

He goes for the chocolates first, taking one for himself before offering one to Sara, but she just shakes her head. 

“Already brushed my teeth,” she explains.

“So you can sneak out to see a time traveler after dark, but not eat candy.” 

That earns him another giggle, before she  finally reaches forward for the candy.

“Laurel would say you’re a bad influence, Mr. Time Traveler.”

“I believe she would say that in my time as well.” 

That seems to catch Sara’s attention.

Her whole face lighting up. 

“You know my sister too?”

“I...” Rip stops. There’s no way to answer that.

Technically, he has never met Laurel Lance and it is unlikely that he ever will. Not now. But Sara told him stories, desperate between choked sobs, laying in his bed for nothing more than the comfort of another person who had lost their family and somehow managed to go on each day.

He cannot say that.

Cannot tell this child the fate of her sister. 

Cannot explain why just thinking about it now brings him pain.

Cannot rationalize all the times he stopped Sara from changing time to bring her back. 

“Once, just for a moment, but you tell me all about her.” 

Sara seems to accept that. Too young to dwell on his suspicious pauses, she grabs another one of the chocolates.

“Well, she’s the best sister in the entire world, so of course future-me talks about her.” 

He needs to change the topic desperately. 

“Maybe tomorrow I can bring her up or-”

“Actually, Miss Lance, I plan on leaving tonight.” 

The devastation that flickers across her face hurts.

“Why?”

“I’ve managed to repair the ship and the rest of our team is waiting for me to return to them. Actually, the future  _ you  _ is waiting for me. It would be terribly rude of me to keep them waiting, wouldn’t it?”

“I guess, but can’t I come with you?” 

“Sadly, no. If two versions of yourself were to interact, that would break all of time.” Which was sort of true, it was complicated, and part of the reason there was a whole  _ time storm  _ in the first place, but explaining the intricacies to a ten year old Sara would be a lost cause since his Sara couldn’t seem to comprehend it, even years later - that or she simply didn’t  _ want _ to comprehend them, either could be the case for Sara Lance.

“That would be bad?”

“Very much so, I’m afraid.” 

Sara seems to consider this for a long moment.

Eventually, she shrugs and takes another piece of chocolate. . 

“You just stayed to say goodbye?”

“I did.” 

“I’ll miss you, Mr. Time Traveler.” 

  
  



	2. 2007

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your support for the first chapter it really means a lot and is probably why I was so eager to get this next chapter update out to you all! 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this next one, its a bit shorter than the last one, just because that's what this 'year' dictates from the story. Chapter sizes will differ depending on what's being covered/how long Rip is in a certain year going forward. 
> 
> (Expect Chapter Three to be out Friday before I leave for Indiana Comic Con.)
> 
> As always thanks to Julia for the beta!
> 
> (Also check out this amazing are [ Maya ](https://avocadodo.tumblr.com/post/159424936788/ill-miss-you-mr-time-traveler-plinys-you) did of last chapter! I'm still freaking out!!)
> 
> Alright, enjoy!

This is not 2017.

Which is to say Rip’s not surprised, a damaged time drive will do that, even when one doesn’t encounter the raging time storm currently occupying the time stream.

It’s just that he hadn’t expected to end up  _ here  _ of all places.

It seems as if time had a mind of its own, drawing him back to the same person. But there was a very big difference between the Sara of 1997 and  _ his _ Sara. Just as there is a very big difference between both of those Saras and  _ this one _ .

The one currently staring at him with familiarity, after he thought he had been discreet as he exited his time ship. “You know, I was joking with Ollie when I said that this didn’t count as a bad decision unless a time traveler came to stop me.” 

She’s crouched down behind a shipping container, hiding at the Starling City Docks, in 2007.

Sara pats the ground next to him. “Come on, Rip, tell me again how I’m fucking up my entire life.”  

He crouches down opposite of her, instinctively. 

Of all the things he had expected from meeting Sara again, this was not it. He would have thought meeting her when she was ten, even for just those two days, would have no effect on the timeline; that she wouldn’t even remember him - let alone know his name.

She seems to sense his hesitance, huffing a breath out which causes her fringe to fly upwards for a second before settling down. “Rip?”

“How do you know my name?” 

“Oh, fuck. Is this the first time for you?” 

Sara kinda looks wildly pleased with this. For a moment - he can clearly see his Sara in her features. It’s the same look Sara had on her face after seducing the Queen of France - terribly proud and up to no good. 

_ Classic Sara Lance.  _

He makes a vague gesture rather than a full answer. 

She accepts this, sighing in an over dramatic way before speaking.  “And of all times, look I can’t really stay and explain it all-” She gestures to her phone, “-Kind of waiting for this guy to text me so I can sneak out of here, but- But you’re a time traveler.”

“I am aware of that.”

Her eye roll is familiar. 

_ Oh, all of this is painfully familiar.  _

“Is your ship still broken? Or has it not broken yet...”

“Still very much broken,” Rip says. “I thought I had managed to hold the time drive in place but-”

“But it’s out of alignment and fractured. Yeah, we’ve had this conversation before.” 

“We have?”

“You’re sort of like my guardian angel, always showing up when I need it most - except for that one time where you showed up and acted like a total asshole. But we’ve both decided to ignore that-”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ve already apologized too,” Sara says, with a light huff of a laugh. “It’s just - it’s fucking weird, right? I know time travel goes all out of order, especially for you, I mean you mentioned that before. I just never thought that this would be our first moment. You probably don’t even know my name, do you?”

“You’re Sara Lance.” 

“Immortal badass? Captain of a time ship? The reason you’re not dead?” 

For him, saying those words was just a day ago, for Sara it must have been years. 

His face must say something - Surprise? Confusion? 

He isn’t sure, but Sara has always been able to read him better than he can manage to read himself, because she gives him a soft comforting smile. 

It’s familiar, painfully familiar. 

“Look, Rip, I-”

Before she can finish the sentence, her phone goes off. 

There’s no apology, no thought spared for him in that moment. He can see how happy she looks, how excited by whatever message she’s getting and - 

And the truth is Rip knows exactly what this is.

Exactly what this date and time had meant the second his ship read it out to him.

Sara had told him enough about this day, about the one thing she would change if she had the chance, how when she met a younger version of herself she had been so tempted to tell that girl to never to get on that boat.

Now was his chance to do exactly what Sara had wanted so desperately to do.

To change her fate. 

To keep Sara from that boat.

From that island.

From the League of Assassins.

From becoming the Canary.

From  _ dying _ .

From ever joining the Legends.

She could live out a normal life; finish going to school, fulfill all her childhood dreams, never have to dirty her hands with the blood of others. 

So what if it would screw up everything that had come after?

So what if Sara getting on that boat was a fixed point in time?

Hadn’t their team ignored the rules enough times that Rip could be allowed to have this moment, to give Sara the life she told him that she dreamed about - the life that, even with the Spear of Destiny in her hands, she had refused to give herself.

_ No. _

No matter how many times his Sara talked about it, she wouldn’t want him to stop her. 

Fate had a way of making things happen. 

Some things had to happen. 

“That’s Ollie, he says the coast is clear, so I’m going to-” she pauses, looking for something in his face, almost like approval.Whatever it is, he cannot be certain and the moment passes. “I’m going to go over there now.” 

“Have a good trip, Miss Lance.” 

Sara smiles up at him.

Probably one of the last innocent smiles she will ever have. 

“Good luck with your time drive,” Sara says,pushing herself up off the ground as he quickly does the same. “And uh, 2006 might be a good year to check out, if you’re looking for spare parts, I seem to remember something about pirates and the time traveler version of the black market?”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, I - hold on,” she reaches into her pocket, pulling out a pen with a triumphant noise. “Give me your arm?” 

He does as instructed, and a second later Sara is scribbling an address on his arm, “That’s where I lived last year, and well, I’m still kind of leasing the place, so just come there any time?” 

She caps her pen, tucking it back into her pocket. 

“Find me. That’s what you’re always supposed to do.”

“I will,” he reassures her. 

Sara nods a bit at that, and steps forward like she’s going to pull him into a hug, but at the last moment she moves her head, presses her lips against his too quickly too be a kiss, but too deliberate to be anything else. 

“Sara-”

“Don’t think too hard,” she says with a wink.

And then she’s gone. 

Walking around the edge of the storage container and into the arms of someone else. 

Regret. 

This is what regret feels like.

But there are some things that time traveling can’t change. 

JFK.

The Titanic. 

The death of his family.

Sara Lance getting on that ship.

 

*

  
  


Against his better judgment, Rip lingers in 2007 for two more days, stays in a terrible hotel that took the cash he had taken with him from the Waverider without glancing at the exact date on the bills. He eats an abundance of take out, makes plans to repair the jumpship with his still severe lack of supplies, and pages through the book that the ten year old Sara had given him.

(Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - only  _ Sara  _ could make that joke at ten years old, not even fully realizing the irony of it.)

He tells himself that he’s lingering to make better repairs to the ship.

To attempt to reach out to a few connections he has to time pirates that may be around this year. 

But he knows where he has to go next. 

An apartment in Central City near the University, in 2006. 

Time seems to have  a mind of its own; a way of working that not even Rip could have predicted. This sort of interference had been forbidden by the Time Masters, and was recognized by any logical time traveler. 

Though apparently it had already happened. So why tempt fate. 

He holds off. 

Waits to fill whatever role time has for him, for just a few days more, for the headline to flash across his hotel room television screen screen, to watch a fixed point settle into existence with him unable to interfere: 

_ The Queen’s Gambit Lost At Sea _ . 

 


	3. 2002

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was going to be a lot happier but then I read Sara's Arrow Wiki article and things had to get rehauled! (Anyways, I'm off to Indiana Comic Con for the weekend, I'll be back to reply to comments and work up another chapter for you all Sunday!)

The ship doesn’t go where he told it to.

Not that Rip is surprised.

In fact, if he had ended up in 2006, he would have considered it a miracle. 

According to the ship’s internal clock, he was in Starling City, March 2002. 

It’s reflexive, instinctual after his last two encounter, that the first thought that comes to his mind is that  _ Sara would be fifteen _ . 

A thought that he quickly pushes out of his head, because he’s not going to seek her out. Regardless of what 2007 Sara may have said, regardless of the implications that he will (or already has) interfered more with the timeline and her past than he ever should have - he refuses to look for her.

2007 is too fresh.

The regret, of letting time unfold as it was required to, without his interference, still lingers in the back of his mind.

The same regret that may have led to him doing a half-assed job of holding the ship together and was probably responsible for his current predicament. 

He’d managed to fix the cloaking to 98%; so unless someone knew exactly what to look for, there was no way anyone should notice the jumpship. 

Power was restored, no more dim lights as a product of the reserve power.

Shields could be better, but without a current risk of combat he put that on the back burner for the time being. 

There was still the time drive - fractured and out of alignment.

(But Sara had said 2006 would be the time for that.)

Which left, the autopilot situation.. 

If he was ever going to work this out, he needed to be able to move the jumpship not just through time but space as well - or in this case, to some location other than Starling City. 

“Autopilot it is,” Rip says to no one in particular, before moving to pull open one of the control panels along the wall. He’s about eighty percent sure that he knows what he is doing.

At least, he knows what the error is; that being the panel of flashing red lights and jumble of cords and connections not even remotely in the right place. 

_ No time like the present _ . 

  
  


*

  
  


He’s so caught up in trying to fix the autopilot - which is far more of a task than Rip had previously expected, seeing as the entire pilot drive is offline and really it's pure luck that he’s ended up in different parts of Starling at all and not simply the roof of Sara’s childhood home each time - that he does not notice the proximity alert until it quite literally knocks on his door.

“Gideon, can you-”

He stops.

_ No Gideon, right. _

“Just a moment,” Rip calls out, because manners dictate that even if whoever is on the other side can’t hear him and the 98% cloaking ability to limit ship visibility - Mother did raise him to have some semblance of manners.

There’s grease on his hands from working on the ship, and he makes half an effort to rub them off on his pants before going over to the jumpship’s viewport, which reveals no one… 

The next knock explains that the proximity alert in question isn’t knocking on the viewport, which should have been the most notable part of the ship, but rather the door.

He grabs his gun, because there’s a high likelihood that the whoever found him, despite having the cloaking on, is someone capable of, or possessing the technology, to find a timeship. 

He presses the control panel to open the door, ready for a fight. 

A time pirate, likely.

Or -

Or a vaguely familiar teenage girl. 

“Miss Lance?”

_ Oh what were the odds of that?  _

He’d recognize her anywhere. 

Even with all of her hair cut short, sticking up in wild and crazy directions, bright red lipstick coating her lips, and freckles more pronounced on her cheeks than he had ever seen them before.

She’s still Sara. 

Still looking at him like he’s the greatest thing she’s seen all day, which Rip knows cannot possibly be true. He doesn’t feel like he deserves anyone looking at him like that. Not now, maybe not ever.

“I knew you were real!”

“Was there a consensus otherwise?”

She grins at him, inviting herself into the jumpship and settling down in the Captain’s chair - in  _ her  _ chair - without waiting for him.

Not that he wouldn’t have invited her in himself, it was just a matter of timing. 

“Laurel said I was just making you up for attention,” Sara replies. “And Daddy spent about eight hours giving me a stranger danger lecture which is entirely your fault, Mr. Time Traveler. But it was worth it.”

“It was?”

“Because you’re real!”

“Indeed, I am.”

“We’ve got a lot to catch up on,” Sara says with a grin, perfectly content to have welcomed herself aboard his ship and back into his life. And he lets her, of course he lets her. Sara Lance is a force of nature that he feels as though he will never be able to stop. “First off, Mr. Time Traveler, do you have a name? Or will telling me jeopardize the entire future?”

“Rip Hunter.” 

“Rip,” Sara says, trying his name out for the first time in her life. “Nice to meet you.”

“And you, Miss Lance.” 

“Call me Sara, please.”

  
  


*

 

While Sara - this version and his own - has no experience fixing a time ship, nor any real interest in learning, she does have an affinity for feeding him. 

She shows up the next day with a box of pizza and a six pack of cola.  

The box of pizza is proudly placed in the center of the jumpship floor, while she sits beside him on the surface, back against the wall of the ship, where the still damaged control panel was hiding. 

“I worry about you.” 

“You’ve only met me once before,” Rip points out. 

But Sara shrugs, as if to suggest that it was insignificant. 

“I get this vibe that you don’t take care of yourself very well. I mean, who goes traveling throughout time without like a sleeping bag or food?” 

“I have nutrient rations-” 

Sara grimaces. “I don’t know what those are but they sound fake and gross.” 

“Imagine if you could take a pill and get all your day’s worth of nutrients?”

“I’d still want pizza.” 

“To each their own,” he says, offering her a mock toast with the can of soda she brought for them. A toast that Sara meets a second later, tapping her can against his, before finishing the drink. 

Her red lipstick leaves a stain around the rim. 

He tears his eyes away from focusing on it. 

“So,” Sara drawls out the word, “You can’t tell me about the future without, like, endangering all of time and space, right?”

“I have a feeling I’m already doing that,” he mumbles under his breath. It’s quiet enough that Sara doesn’t entirely catch it.

“What?” she asks, half muffled by the piece of pizza in her mouth. 

“No, I can’t tell you about the future.” 

“Figured,” she nods. “What about what you’ve been doing since we last saw each other? I mean, it’s been years.”

“For you,” Rip replies. “For me, this is all the same week.” 

“Time Travel is weird.”

“It’s complicated and things aren’t always linear, but once you go to a time period, you can’t go back and then there’s fixed points in time or the preposition of knowledge which offsets temporal interference, and-”

“And you stopped making sense.”

“Sorry,” Rip replies after a moment, “I forget that not everyone went to the Academy.” 

“You went to Time Traveler School?” 

This time, it’s Rip’s turn to nod.

“Okay, well... if I’m a time traveler like you said, then eventually I have to know this stuff, right? So explain it, explain the whole ‘temporal influence’ or whatever.”

“Temporal interference,” He corrects. “The idea is that everything that will be done already has been done in the nature of time travel. For instance, when you and I work together in the future, we travel to France -”  _ and you seduce the queen  _ \- “to stop time pirates from assassinating the king, but technically, in this moment that has already happened. Because  _ I  _ have experienced it and because the period of time pre-exists where we currently are - but for you, fifteen year old Sara Lance, this has not yet occurred.”

“That’s confusing.” 

“Indeed it is,” Rip agrees. “Now, here’s where it gets tricky.The idea is that if I tell you this now, you - as you are now - could actively make a decision never to go with me to France and, therefore, change our present history. However, were that to occur based on your preposition of knowledge, the temporal change would have occurred about twenty-five seconds ago.”

“What?”

“Do you feel any different? Like the French monarchy could have fallen years before it should have?”

Sara pauses. As if she is honestly thinking about it. “No...?”

“Good, then time is as it should be.” 

“Could you take me there now?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.” Rip replies. There’s a change in tone, sudden and unmistakable, as if the temperature inside the jumpship just dropped ten degrees.“Take you where? France? You know my piloting drive is fractured and…” 

Rip trails off.

He can see the way she looks. Suddenly nervous, pulling her knees up to her chest. Blue eyes just a little bit wider than usual. 

Something is bothering her. 

He knows the signs, the same signs he’s seen in his Sara, back when they’d first became a team. When she was worried about losing what little control she had on her life, falling victim to pit sickness. 

“The Academy, or Time School, it has to be better than normal high school... right?” Sara says, speaking softly but quickly, desperate to get the words out, “And I’m going to end up there anyways, you’ve said it before, I’m the Captain of a time ship. I’m like Captain Kirk or maybe more like Janeway, but -” she pauses, a hand coming up to rub at her eyes. 

Crying.

Sara is crying, or almost.

But when he tries to focus on her she turns away. Unwilling to let him see her tears. 

“Can’t you take me away now?” 

“It’s not that easy, Sara. Even if I wanted to, time has a will of it’s own.” 

She nods her head. Scrubs at her eyes one more time before she pushes up off the floor. Grabbing her jacket from where she had pulled it off hours earlier, and taking her backpack off the floor. 

He only manages to get up the nerve to speak - to try and stop her - when she’s opened the door to leave the jumpship.

“Sara, I-”

“We’re friends in the future, right, Rip? Not just people who have to work together or like Captain or Commander. We’re actually friends?”

“Yes, of course.” 

This time, when she turns back to look at him, he can see the sad smile on her lips. 

“Good, because I could use a friend.” 

  
  


*

 

She shows up the next day, the same time as the previous two.After yesterday, Rip cannot help feeling relieved at the sight of her standing there. 

There’s still a hint of sadness in her smile, but she’s got two bags of Big Belly Burger; one of which she hands off to him the second she comes inside. And just like that, everything from before is pushed away. 

“I was thinking,” Rip says, as he carefully unwraps his burger. “That I might actually leave the ship today.”

“A Christmas Miracle.”

“It’s March.” 

“A March Miracle,” Sara corrects without hesitation. “Where, exactly, are we planning to go?”

“We?”

“Obviously, I’m going with you.” 

“Right.” Rip had expected this, had waited until the evening on the off chance that Sara would want to go with him. A part of him had hoped she would have turned him down. The very small part that still worried about exactly how much interacting with her was going to change the timeline. “Well, in that case, there’s a Scrap Yard not far from here, and I was hoping to find something that might work as an internal dampener?”

“A what?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.” 

“Okay then,” Sara gives him an odd look. “Let’s go.”

“I thought we were having lunch? Dinner? What meal  is this exactly-”

“We can walk and eat,” Sara says. “At least, I can. Did they not teach multi-tasking at the great Time Academy?”

He can’t help the offended tone coming out, as he insists, “I know how to multi-task.”

“Good, then let’s go.” Just like that, Sara is up and off.

Rip follows her, of course; he would follow Sara anywhere. 

He will follow Sara anywhere. He knows this now.

She talks on their way there, little things mostly. About school work she’s putting off working on. About the little places around Starling that he never considered before. About the weather, of all things.

It’s small talk. 

His Sara had gotten over the need for small talk; she was quick and to the point, blunt with whatever was on her mind. This Sara, young as she was, still had the need to please people,following the standards of society. And to hide what was so clearly bothering her. 

“I’m sorry, I’m rambling,” she says at one point, cutting herself off in the middle of some story about the high school softball team - which Sara is no longer apart of due to someone named Aubrey being a ‘total bitch’. 

“I like listening to you speak,” Rip admits easily. 

He would have to be completely blind to miss the way Sara’s cheeks flush at that, but she’s  _ fifteen  _ and that was not something Rip had expected to deal with at all. 

“So like, future us... are we like a thing?”

“A  _ thing _ ?”

Sara’s look is knowing. “Like, you know, have we ever-”

“Please don’t finish that sentence,” Rip says quickly. “Sara, you’re fifteen.”

“Exactly! I’ve had sex before.”

“Yes, well it’s still too young -”

“I’m not a child.”

“For me you were ten less than a week ago.” 

That seems to shock Sara back into place. She shrugs a bit, casually dismissive and upset, but there’s nothing Rip can do about it. At least, nothing he feels comfortable doing. It’s better that he cuts this off now, because in this year nothing can happen.

Regardless of what the future holds. 

Thankfully, he is saved from having to dwell more on the subject by their arrival at the scrap yard. 

 

*

 

“So, what exactly is this supposed to do?” Sara asks, holding up the switchboard he had found at the scrap yard. 

They’re sitting outside of the ship, in the park on the grass, because, apparently, someone was worried that Rip wasn’t getting enough sunlight and fresh air. A point that was nearly moot as the sun was setting just beyond the horizon, spreading the last vestiges of its light over the city before them. 

“Hopefully, it will enable me to go somewhere other than Starling City.”

“I’ll miss you,” Sara says.

“Don’t worry, we’ll meet again. You’re not going to be stuck in Starling your whole life. In fact, I’m supposed to be finding you in Central City next.”

She grins like that’s a relief. Running her spare hand through her short blonde hair, eyes fixated on the sunset.

Rip turns to watch the sunset as well. 

It’s better than watching Sara.

“But seriously,” she says, after a moment. “You’re just going to mash some car parts from the 1990s with a future time ship and hope for the best?”

“That is the general idea. Were I back on our other ship, this would be a lot easier. Gideon has the technical knowhow to -”

“Wait, who is Gideon?”

“She’s my-”

“Wife?” Sara cuts him off. “Are you married? Are we having an affair in the future? Is that why you felt uncomfortable when I asked you to-”

“No, God no. Gideon’s not my wife. Why is that even the first thing your mind jumped to?”

Sara pointedly avoids his question.

“But she’s like your girlfriend? Have you kissed her yet? Have you?”

“Sara, please-”

“I bet you’ve kissed her.” 

He needs a drink to handle this conversation, maybe two. 

Before Sara can speak again, he reaches out to cover her mouth with his hand. 

“Gideon is an artificial intelligence construct that runs our other ship.”  

It’s really not that much of a surprise when she licks his hand. 

He should have expected that much, but it doesn’t stop the look of disgust from crossing his face as he pulls his hand back to rub it dry against his pants leg. 

“Sounds kinky!”

“I’m going to ignore that.” 

“Probably for the best.” 

 

*

 

The thing is - 

After three days of seeing Sara at the same time, he had sort of expected her. He’d even had the jumpship set an alarm to go off just before she would be arriving, so he could pull himself out of his work to focus on whatever was going on in her life today.

But Sara never shows up.

He waits, pages through the book she lent him, puts off eating a nutrient bar for a whole hour.

Before accepting that she isn’t coming. 

There could be any number of reasons for Sara not showing up - she was fifteen, in a world that Rip was most certainly not a part of. Surely she had friends that had wondered where she’d been the past few days. Or homework that she needed to catch up on. 

Other things, more important than hanging out with a time traveler in the park. 

Surely, it was nothing. 

  
  


*

  
  


Another day passes with no sign of Sara. 

And another.

And another.

  
  


*

  
  


And then she’s there, knocking on the door frantically in the middle of the day, not at all at her usual time. 

When Rip opens the door, she stares back at him with tears in her eyes, cheeks blotchy and red, hands trembling.“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to bother you but-”

“You’re never a bother, Sara.” 

She collapses against him, hugs him like it’s the end of the world. Rip hugs her back instinctively, sits there on the floor of the jumpship with Sara trembling in his arms. He doesn’t push her, he waits until she’s cried herself out, until the sniffling seems to calm down, and the mumbled apologies against his chest stem out into silence. 

He’s not sure how long they sit there, but eventually she does pull back. 

Her eyes are still red, but she’s seemed to stop crying. 

“Do you want to talk about it or-”

“Do you think I’m a slut?”

The question catches him so off guard that he can’t help but blurt out, “What?”

She tugs off her backpack pointedly, the blue school bag she’s had with her every time they’d met since he got to 2002, but this time he can tell something is different. There, across the front of it, is written one word in black sharpie. 

“Oh, Sara.”

“It’s not my fault. He was flirting with me, and if he really was going to be serious about her he wouldn’t have even asked me to come back to his place, right? That’s not my fault. But now everybody at school is calling me a slut and a home wrecker, which doesn’t even make sense because they’ve been dating for like a month but-” Her voice catches, and Rip reaches out instinctively to offer comfort. “-am I a terrible person?”

“No. Never.” he reassures her. “You are one of the most incredible people I know, the strongest, the bravest.” 

“Can’t I be that person now?”

“Sara-”

“You have a time machine, just take me away to somewhere better please. Somewhere nobody gets to know me as ‘Laurel’s fuck-up of a baby sister who can’t keep her legs shut’.” Sara’s voice is desperate. “Please?”

If only it were that easy.

If only he could take her away.

Speed up time to make everything better.

He was never supposed to see Sara like this, never supposed to see her hurting; so young and already so angry with the world. But he was here now, he could do something. Maybe not take her away from Starling. Maybe not fight everyone whoever hurt her. 

But  _ something _ . 

He gets up from the floor, feeling Sara’s eyes on him the entire time, as he crosses to the other side of the ship. Grabbing a pink backpack off the floor, one given to him back in 1997. 

_ It’s not much, but it’s something _ . 

“I wish I could, I really do, but you know as well as I do that my ship’s damaged. There’s no guarantee where I’ll end up when I leave here, no guarantee that I’d be able to bring you back. And Sara - you have so much of a life left to live.” 

There’s still tears in her eyes, but she takes the backpack he offers with a weak smile. 

“Time would break if you took me with you, wouldn’t it?”

_ There’s a very strong likelihood that it was already broken _ .

He doesn’t tell her all of that he just nods. “Yes.”

“Figures.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“Just tell me this. Does it really get better? In the future, when we work together, and I’m captain of a time ship or whatever. Do we travel the world and save time? And nobody calls me a slut or graffitis my locker or compares me to Laurel or any of that?”

“You’re a hero, Sara Lance. You always have been and you always will be. It’s something innate - deep inside of you.” 

This will always be true and he will always believe this with all of his soul.

_ Sara Lance is the best of any of them.  _

Even here and now, with eyes that water with fresh tears, and a desperate need for love and approval. 

He loves her. 

Far more than he had ever been willing to acknowledge, and right now she needs that support. 

So he says words that feel familiar on his lips, “You’re stronger than you know.”

  
  


*

 

Leaving without saying goodbye seems wrong, it hurts him in ways he hadn’t thought he was still able to be hurt. But he had lingered in 2002 for long enough. Whatever was to comes next, whatever  _ happens _ next, is up to Sara. His lingering in this park for her to come back will not help her. 

It hurts.

Loving her hurts. 

Which is why, he doesn’t try to aim for 2006, even though he knows that’s where he needs to go - even though Sara of 2007 had insisted upon this being the year he would need to reach to fix his ship. 

He’s not ready for that, not quite yet. 

Instead he lets the time storm take control, and pull him in whatever direction it wants. 


	4. 2010

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout out to Ari, ( @ icedvulpix on tumblr ) for coming in with the last min beta save! 
> 
> Wanted to give you guys a fic update before I disappeared into last min prep and such for C2E2 this weekend! (Also if anyone is in Chicago and going to this massive con let me know! This is a big one guys and I've already got a bunch of people I'm excited to meet up with for the first time at this con, and if you're going I'd love to meet up with you too!)
> 
> Enjoy!

Rip is still in Starling City because he’d been unwilling to put in a specific destination - the jumpship’s clock tells him it’s early April in 2010.

For a moment he's half tempted to stay in Starling City after all - the point of leaving last time was to distance himself from Sara, and in 2010 she wouldn't be here.

Not after the Gambit.

He lingers there for a day, long enough for feel nostalgic, before taking off to an old Time Pirate hideout; one he had found during his years of traveling alone in the Waverider.

São Paulo, Brazil. 

Large enough and populated enough that it would be easy for one needing to lay low from the Time Master’s to find a moment of peace. Too many lives and timelines interacting to get a picture of what's going on.

Just the type of place Rip had been planning to head to when he left the team.

Maybe he'd manage to get that vacation after all.

 

*

 

He spends a month in São Paulo reaching out to his contacts in the time black market: a few travelers that will trade intel for parts he may need to repair his ship. He’s never liked time pirates, never considered himself one of them even when he was acting against the Time Masters orders. But he’s been known to reach out from time to time, to those who had more of an interest in exploring and making themselves rich than screwing with all of time and space.

Regardless, nobody has a spare time drive laying around. Yet.

If there was ever a place for one to turn up it would be here.

Rip’s still hopeful, which is what he tells himself is the reason he continues to linger in São Paulo rather than going where he knows he’s supposed to go next. An address that had been written on his arm, now smudged away but still there in the back of Rip’s mind.

The truth is, he needs this. A break, had been exactly why he left the Waverider, and now with a broken time ship, he was actually able to get one. To get time to himself.

Time to think. 

Time to wonder just how badly his  _ team  _ had inevitably messed things up to cause a timestorm. 

Time to read a book lent to him in 1997.

By Sara.

Inevitably, all of his thoughts go back to her. Which is why he’s not at all surprised when Sara finds him. 

 

*

 

His first thought when someone slams him against a brick wall with a knife at his throat is that he should have known better than to trust time pirates. His second thought comes when he realizes exactly who it is that has pushed him up against the wall. Or more specifically, when he hears her voice.

“I'm going to kill you, Rip Hunter.”

“Sara?”

He asks even though it's not really a question - not when she's standing right there looking the most like  _ his  _ Sara that he has ever seen. She's dressed in all black, a hood pulled up over her hair, a few fly sways of blonde hair sticking to the sides of her face, with pure anger in her eyes.

It's a League of Assassins get up. Sara was dressed not dissimilar to this back when he had brought her back from the League, after stranding her for two years. She’s less controlled than she was back then, but certainly just as violent. 

“You absolute bastard,” Sara hisses. Her knife pressing tighter against his threat. “Give me one good reason not to kill you.”

“I haven't been to 2006 yet.”

That causes her to falter a bit before her faces steadied back into steel.

“But you were there in 2007 before I got on the Gambit and you  _ knew _ !”

Anger.

Yes, this is the Sara he was used to. The last time they'd fought like this, truly was after their trip to the moon where she yelled at him for time scattering the team to protect them. 

A decision Rip still stood by. 

Just as he stood by the fact that Sara had to get on the Gambit.

She's still yelling at him. “You  _ knew!  _ You knew what would happen and you abandoned me to that hell! What's the point of having a fucking time machine if you don't use it?”

“I couldn't stop you even if I had wanted to.”

“Bullshit!”

“Look, I don't expect you to understand the intricacies of time travel-”

“You were supposed to be my guardian angel!”

“It was a fixed point in time.”

“Your _death_ is about to be a fixed point in time-”

“Habibti, stop.” 

And just like that Sara’s pulling back, tucking the knife back up her sleeve, but not before giving him a look of complete disgust.

Rip had never been more happy to have his conversation interrupted. That is, until he recognizes the woman standing behind Sara - curling a possessive hand around Sara’s wrist.

“I must say, you look remarkably like your sister.” 

Nyssa al Ghul.

_ Ah, yes, it would be about that time. _

Nyssa’s hand is still steady on Sara’s wrist, but her gaze is slightly confused when she meets Rip’s eyes. “How do you know, Talia?”

“I met her once, when she was no more than a child-”

Sara makes an offended halfnoise, before speaking with a still angry tone, “You make a habit of hanging out with little girls, Hunter.” 

He shouldn’t rise to the bait. But there’s something about Sara, that when she wants to fight, he can’t help it. Cannot help the need to push back, to not just accept her scorn, especially when it involves decisions that he believed he made correctly. 

“It was a mere coincidence that I happened to be in Nanda Parbat at the time, a  _ business associate _ of mine was visiting,” he chooses the words carefully, no need to jeopardize all of history, “Seeing as she has a delicate history with the League-”

Getting punched isn’t nearly as shocking as it should have been.

 

*

 

He wakes up suddenly in a hotel room, most certainly not the one he had been staying in.

For one thing, it’s far too nice: white bed sheets, some sort of art on the wall, the steady sound of an air conditioner cooling the room down. 

For another, Sara Lance is sitting in a chair at the end of the bed staring at him like he’s her prey. 

“You were having a nightmare,” she says, cold and detached like a statement of fact.

He had been, but at this point, the nightmares were so steadily familiar that he barely even recognized them. 

Before the Legends, they had just been about losing Miranda and Jonas over and over again until he stopped crying out in the night because he felt so numb. Now they change, torture by the Legion of Doom factors in a lot of them, missions that could have gone wrong, calls that were just a bit too close, the feeling of a throat under his hand as someone he’d forgotten to love struggled to breathe-

“Hunter.” 

Her voice, saying his last name, brings him back. He pushes himself up into a sitting position on the bed. 

“I thought we opted to forgo formality, Miss Lance, or did you forget?”

She bristles at that, but doesn’t say anything.

He tries again. “You punched me.”

This time he gets a small quirk of her lips.  _ There’s  _ his Sara, underneath all of that League training. “You deserved it.” 

“I suppose I might have, but I stand by my decision,” Rip says, gesturing towards her, “This was always meant to be part of your life, I could not change that, even if I had wanted to.” 

Sara seems to consider that for a moment. Weighing his words carefully, before she asks, “When we met was I with the League?” 

“It’s complicated.” 

“Don’t give me that bullshit!” 

There it was, the anger again, rising up under the cool cover. 

He watches as she curls her fingers in towards her palm, taking a deep breath to regulate and calm herself, before speaking once more. “Yes or no, was I with the League when we first met in your timeline.” 

It was complicated. 

That was the truth, but when he’d found Sara - the League was under the control of Malcolm Merlyn, she was suffering from a case of pit induced blood lust, and a small part of her still held loyalty to Nanda Parbat - or more specifically to Nyssa al Ghul. 

What’s one lie in the grand scheme of things? One slight blurring of the truth, when faced with all of time?

“Yes.” 

She nods at that. A familiar gesture that makes him wish for the Sara he had seen a month ago. 

“That’s why you let me get on the Gambit.” 

“Yes.” 

Another nod before Sara’s pushing herself up out of the chair. She grabs a knife off an end table, tucking it up her sleeve in one careful movement. Everything is precise. She’s become the fighter her always knew she was destined to be since the last time he saw her. He can’t help but miss the innocence she once held; an innocence that is long gone from this Sara and from  _ his  _ Sara. 

When she speaks, it is back to being cold and detached. “Nyssa has paid for the room for the night, as an  _ apology  _ for my reaction,” a hint of disdain lingers on that word, “You are welcome to stay here, to enjoy any drinks in the mini fridge and the continental breakfast in the morning. If I were you, I would leave this time as soon as possible. She has already attempted to reach out to Talia about what you said earlier and I can only assume that getting too involved with this would danger time and space.”

“It just might,” Rip confirms. 

“Then leave here, Rip. Go where we can’t find you, to some other time.”

“Sara-”

“I know, I can’t ask you to stop meddling with my life. Maybe it’s fate or something, I mean, I used to believe you were my guardian angel. We both saw how that worked out.”

“I still have to go to 2006. That’s where you told me I fix my ship.”

“Then make that your next stop.”

Sara seems to hesitate there for a moment, before reaching up to a chain around her neck. There’s a few things hanging, one of them familiar enough that it still hangs around her neck in 2017, while the others are a mystery - tokens lost or purposely put aside over the years. 

One of them is a key. A key she presses into his hands. 

“I always wondered how you got the key to my apartment,” she muses. “Take this, fix your ship and get back to where you belong. For both our sakes’.” 

“I’ll try.”

“That’s all I can ask,” she replies, finally making her way to the door. “I guess I’ll see you eventually.” 

“Eventually.” 

  
  
  



	5. 2006

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM VERY SORRY I TOOK SO LONG TO UPDATE. I had the con last weekend, and then caught a terrible cold that I am still fighting. This chapter is unbeta'd, though I looked over it twice and hopefully caught all the typos, because I didn't want you all to have to wait any longer for a chapter - the next chapter will be more polished and not take as long to be posted (hopefully).

He doesn’t stay in one place for very long after that.

No more extended vacations to think.

No more waiting around for the parts to fix his ship to appear on the black market.

No more running into versions of Sara that don’t want him around. 

Central City, 2006. 

That was where Sara had told him to go. 2006 and then back to where the rest of the Legends were no doubt screwing up all of time. 

Of course, getting to 2006 without a working time drive has proven to be a difficult task, no punching in his destination and ending up exactly where he wants to go. Instead it's the luck of the draw over and over again. 

Stopping just long enough to take the ship back into the time stream the second he realized he still wasn’t where he needed to be. 

Sao Paulo, 1994. 

Chicago, 2003. 

London, 1941. 

National City, 2014.

Paris, 2027. 

Las Vegas, 1989. 

Metropolis, 1963.

_ Central City. _

_ December 8th, 2006 _ .

 

*

 

There’s something romantic about the winter, the snow on the ground, lighting twinkling on houses, the song of bells ringing on every street corner.

Central City, in particular, is beautiful in the winter. 

A place that one could get lost in. If they didn’t have a set destination in mind.

It’s late. 

Not late enough for the neighborhoods surrounding Central City University to have settled in for the night, but late enough that visiting would be improper. That Rip’s proper British upbringing almost stops him from going and seeking Sara out.

Almost.

Because Rip feels a draw here, to the apartment that Sara will give him the address to in 2007 with the key from 2010. 

She had told him to just come by before, no need to knock, that now he had a key and she would be expecting him - a statement that still confused Rip. The notion that he would go in anywhere without knocking went against every principle of Rip’s upbringing, Mother would have never allowed an impolite action such as this, but if Sara said that was the way it happened, she having the advantage of foresight must have been right.

Still he hesitates, there before he door, the key heavy in his hand.

This was it then. This was the end of his journey. He’d fix his timeship here and go back to the team. 

Back where he belonged. 

There was just one more stop to get through. 

Before he can talk himself out of it, push off greeting Sara until a morning hour, he turns unlocks the door. 

Which, in hindsight, perhaps waiting till the morning wouldn’t have been the worst idea. 

“Holy Fuck-”

“I’m sorry, I-”

“You said you didn’t have-” 

“Like fucking, shit, Rip,-”

“Let me just-” 

“Baby can’t we-” 

“I know you have a key but-”

“This has been a mistake, I-”

“Wait, he’s not your boyfriend or-”

“Shut up, Ollie-”

“Hold on is that-”

“Because, I’d be down for a threesome-”

“Don’t you dare-”

“Oliver Queen-”

“Hey, do we-”

“Not now, Rip, I really don’t-”

“Sorry, Sara-”

“-Know each other?”

“-Need this tonight.”

“-I’ll leave.” 

He’s about to do just. The door is still cracked open, easy enough to slip back out of and pretend he hadn’t seen all of  _ this _ . 

In theory, Rip had known this was inevitable. He had known that this relationship occurred, it was part of Sara’s past, a part that he had seen briefly in 2007. But it was different seeing it here, seeing a much younger version of the  _ Green Arrow  _ with his pants down and Sara - 

Rip pulls his eyes quickly away from the duo, instead staring at an odd yellow brown stain on the ceiling, and taking a deep steadying breath. 

In and out. 

In and out.

In and - 

“I’ll leave,” he says again. 

This time with more confidence. 

This was a bad idea, coming in the middle of the night, no matter what Sara from 2010 had said - the  _ Sara _ that had clearly had known he was going to walk in on the middle of her having sex with _ Oliver Queen _  - the morning would be better, less awkward, he could try again then.

“No,” Sara says. Hesitant at first, but then stronger the second time. “No, Ollie, is leaving?”

“I am?”

“Really, Sara, that isn’t necessary.”

“No, it is,” Sara insists. When Rip drags his gaze back down to her, he finds that steady look is on her face, the one he recognizes when from she’s being  _ Captain  _ Lance, even if the look is somewhat disturbed by the fact that she’s naked other than a pair of knee high black socks.

He allows himself one longer moment to check her out, before turning his gaze back up and away. 

Just as she continues speaking, this time to Oliver. “I forgot I told Rip he could come visit this weekend.” It’s a lie, but one she executes flawlessly. “There’s some symposium thing at Star Labs and my couch is cheaper than a hotel, so you know.” 

Clearly not gaining his skills of deduction until  _ after  _ the Queen’s Gambit goes down, Oliver seems to accept it, making a noise of agreement before clasping Rip on the shoulder, forcing him to make awkward eye contact with a very naked Oliver Queen. “Shit, sorry, man. You know how space-y Sara can be, especially after shots.” 

Oliver’s wink makes Rip’s stomach turn.

Sara’s accompanying laugh is only just a little bit hollow. 

“Let me just find my pants and get out of here, yeah?”

“That’d be lovely,” Rip says, aiming for somewhere between polite and disgusted, but Oliver is too drunk to really process it. He just pulls Rip into an awkward  _ naked  _ ‘bro hug’ before going in search of his pants.

Sara, on the other hand, has no qualms about her nudity. 

Once Oliver has managed to find his pants, Sara shows him to the door, and Rip makes the mistake of watching as she presses up on her toes to pull Oliver into a goodbye kiss. 

A kiss that makes his stomach turn. 

_ Jealousy _ . 

That is the emotion he’s feeling, the same one he had felt when he watched Nyssa hold tight to Sara’s wrist in Sao Paulo. 

Sara catches the expression on his face, raising an eyebrow at him. 

Denying it seems the right course of action. “I’m not jealous.”

Because really, admitting that he might be even a little bit jealous of Oliver Queen of all people, was unacceptable. He shouldn’t be jealous not when he knows this relationship isn’t going to work out. 

Sara is still there looking at him, her fringe falling into her eyes, her red lipstick smudged where someone else’s lips had just been against hers, arms crossed over her breasts, and Rip- 

Rip might be a little bit jealous. 

“Okay, perhaps I am?”

“I knew it,” she says, sounding incredibly proud of herself, “I knew it, when you came last time-”  _ last time? _ “-you were so angsty, and I knew it was because we have something in the future. Are we married in the future? Or-”

Yes, because telling nineteen year old Sara that he was in love with her future self was most certainly a conversation Rip was ready to have.

He grimaces.

Sara seeing his grimace trails off. 

The words come out before he can think them through, “I just don’t like seeing you with other people.” 

When she speaks it is with a less excited tone, “Other people? So it’s not just because Ollie is  _ Ollie _ .” 

“You mean, because he’s dating your sister?”

“Never expected  _ you  _ to slut shame me, Rip, of all people.”

“I wasn’t,” he insists, “I respect your life choices, all of them, they’re what makes you who you are. It doesn’t mean that I have to enjoy seeing them, rather than hearing about the short version later. I will admit that seeing you with other people is never something I wanted to see, and it’s been twice now.” 

She seems to accept that, just prompts, “Twice? Who is the other one?”

“You know I can’t-”

“Then be vague.”

He shouldn’t, but Sara seems to be one of his greatest weaknesses.  “The last one was particularly… Well, she and I have some fundamentally different world ideals, and the way she was with you-”

Sara makes a sort of accomplished noise. “I knew it wasn’t just a phase!”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m bisexual, right? In the future. I wasn’t sure just yet, I mean there was Marina at this party a few months back, but like that might have been just an in the moment thing, except I really-”

Rip pales. “I didn’t mean to out you.” 

“I’m pretty sure outing me to myself doesn’t count, Rip.” 

“Yes, well, I-” 

“Seriously, it’s fine.”

He isn’t sure. Time travel always manages to complicate things. All of this was a bit confusing, and it only got more confusing when he remembered that Sara was still standing there naked.

“Would you mind putting some clothes on, or really, as I said before, I could just leave and come back in the morning,” he says, because it’s awkward standing here with Sara fumbling on a pair of panties and draping another man’s jacket over her shoulders. 

“No, it’s fine, it’s Dead Week,” she says as if that explains everything, before grabbing an opened beer bottle off the counter. “Even if I didn’t have Ollie over, I wouldn’t have been doing anything.”

It does not.

“Shouldn’t you be in a library studying?” 

Sara gives him this look, like it's the craziest thing he’s ever said. 

Like people didn’t normally go to college to get an education. 

Like textbooks weren’t meant to be opened rather than stacked together still in their plastic wrapping with a bottle of vodka resting on top.

“I’m actually majoring in bartending and blowjobs so, no.”

“Sara-”

“Oh what ‘The Great Time Traveling Rip Hunter’ not judging me for who I sleep with, but not studying for finals is where he draws the line. 

“You’re drunk.”

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” she gestures at him with her beer bottle, “Never would have guessed that on my own. You know, most guys like it when I’m drunk. Ollie likes it when I’m drunk.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I am not Oliver Queen.”

She sighs. 

A long drawn out thing.

A noise almost like disappointment. 

“Rip, sit the fuck down, make a cup of tea or something. I’m going to take a drunk shower, and pick up where Ollie left off, and then I will be right back out here ready to deal with whatever weird time travel shit you have going on okay.”

“Where Ollie-”

“I’m going to mastrabte in the shower, Rip, don’t make it weird.” 

Suddenly that’s all he can think about.

He doesn’t mean to listen for her noises over the sound of the running water of the shower, doesn’t mean to think about the times he had accidentally walked in on Sara before, never locking the team bathroom (nobody on the Legend’s seemed to have a sense of privacy other than Rip), the one time she had jokingly winked at him and told him he could join her. 

He burns his hand against the kettle thinking about it, before he pushes himself to put that memory away. 

It would do him no good here. 

_ Tea, then everything else. _

 

*

 

By the time Sara emerges from the shower, a blue bathrobe tied around her body, Rip is settled down on the couch with tea in a mug with a green cartoon alien on it, while a second mug (shaped like a weird monkey? head) sits on the table top next to him. 

Sara takes the other mug, giving him a wink, “ET, nice.” 

He doesn’t get the comment, but decides not to push on it, because a moment later she’s settling down on the couch beside him. 

“I was thinking about you in the shower.”

He can’t help the heat from rushing to his cheeks, “When you we’re-”

“No,” Sara says quickly, “I mean, unless, you want me to, then next time-” 

“Please, don’t.” 

She snorts a laugh at him. 

A real laugh.

Unlike the one she’d given Oliver earlier. 

“So what’s up, other than you being the most awkward time traveler on the planet?” 

“Excuse me?”

“You did come here for a reason didn’t you?”

_ Yes, right _ . 

He did have a reason for being here, other than being distracted by the still very close to naked Sara sitting next to him. 

“I was informed by a future version of you that I would need to come back to 2006 in order to get the parts necessary to fix my ship and return to our team so-”

“You’re too late.” 

“I’m too  _ late _ ?”

Sara no longer looks happy to see him, not that she looked particularly happy before, but there was something about her. A teasing manner that had fallen away to something much like disappointment as she stares down into the mug of tea that he had made her. 

“You came back in October, we went to this black market and you bought the piece that you needed, I’m not,” Sara shakes her head, “I shouldn’t say too much, I guess, since it hasn’t happened for you yet it’s just. I sort of hoped that you being back was because, you’d remembered what I’d said, and wanted to see me again not because,” she shakes her head, “Fuck Rip, I hate this sometimes.”

“I’m sorry,” he says instinctively. 

She sounds too similar to the Sara he had last seen. 

It hurts him to think that all of this traveling around through her life may have hurt more than helped, that when he gets back to his proper time  _ his  _ Sara may want nothing to do with him. 

Just as the last Sara hadn’t.

Just as he is beginning to feel this Sara doesn’t either.

“Don’t apologize, I know it’s not your fault that things don’t happen in order for you and I’m sure one day this will all make sense, I just…” She trails off setting her mug down on the counter.

He mirrors her action a second later.

“Sara?” 

He should know by now that with Sara it is best to expect the unexpected, but even so, he could have never account for this. 

For her leaning across the couch to press her lips to his, soft and certain, a deliberate action made of necessity. And when he kisses her back it is without thinking, because this is Sara, even if she is younger and more innocent than the version of her that he first fell in love with, he cannot deny the will of his heart, cannot deny himself this moment. 

But it is, only a moment. 

And so it ends, as all moments must, with Sara pulling away from him, the smallest hint of regret lingering there in her eyes. Impossible for him to miss. Rip knows too much about regret to ever miss it.

She speaks with a tight voice, and it pains him still. “I’m drunk,” she says, to explain it all away. “I should go sleep this off, if you’re here in the morning we can talk or-”

“Sara-”

“Good night, Rip.” 

Just like that she’s gone, closed off instantly, heading to a bedroom in the back of the apartment and Rip -

Rip suddenly needs to be anywhere but here. 

  
  
  
  
  



	6. 2015

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick update but small chapter! Enjoy?

Anywhere but here. 

Had he taken a moment to think it through, to hesitate before taking the jumpship back into the time stream, maybe he wouldn’t have ended up  _ here  _ of all places. 

Suddenly the snow doesn’t seem romantic it had been in 2006, but rather horrifying, a stark contrast to the gravestones around him.

The one gravestone in particular that he can’t look away from:

_ Sara Lance.  _

_ 1997 - 2007. _

Rationally he knows that her death isn’t permanent. That here in 2015 she may be dead, but in a few months she will be alive again, and that by this time next year she will be traveling on the Waverider with him and the rest of the Legends. 

However, in the moment it can still hurt. 

Knowing that the woman he loves in lying dead beneath his feet. 

Knowing that this will not be the last time she dies.

Knowing that the next time she stops breathing it will be at his hand. 

Knowing that in their line of work death is always possible.

Knowing that happy endings are few and far between. 

Knowing that - 

“Rip.” 

He jolts at the sound of his name, not expecting anyone here, not expecting anybody to know who he was, but when he turns around, he’s not overly surprised. 

He had never met her before. Never had the chance before her death, but he can see the resemblance between them in an instant. And he remembers all too clearly the way Sara had described her, her voice breaking over the name of the sister she would never see again - “Laurel Lance.” 

“I should have known to expect you here eventually,” Laurel says, her voice soft and sad, as it has no doubt been for months. A vague sort of confirmation. “I’m just surprised it took this long.”

“I must say for me that this is entirely unexpected.” 

“Right, sorry, Sara...” her voice cracks over her sister’s name. Not unlike Sara’s would eventually do the same.  

The Lance sisters were made for suffering and sorrow. 

She starts again, taking in a shaky breath before saying, “Sara had said sometimes things didn’t go in order for you.” 

“Sara told you that I was a time traveler?” 

That was something he hadn’t expected.

Another change to the timeline. 

Laurel gives a small nod. 

“I used to think you were an imaginary friend when we were little. I would get so mad at her for telling the same story over and over again, wanting to get everyone’s attention, with this fantastical time traveler she met on the roof, but-” Another shaky breath, the sound of someone who has been close to tears for far too long, barely holding it back. He wants to tell her that it’s okay to cry here, that he himself had been nearly there moments before. “-You’re real aren’t you? I mean you’re here, and I figure with the Arrow and the League and the Undertaking and everything else that...I mean, I guess time travel isn’t all that impossible…”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Rip gives her a small grin. 

Nothing much.

Nothing that lasts. 

However, she takes it for the peace offering that it is, stepping closer towards him and towards the headstone that he’s been standing by. They are close enough that if he leaned slightly to his right he would bump shoulders with her, but neither of them look at each other.

Instead they turn back to a headstone with the wrong year on it. 

Silence seems to stretch into an eternity 

“ I saw you for a moment last year, just a quick thing, in passing and I….”

Last year. 

That hadn’t happened for him yet.

Another stop he’d have to make before he went back the team, back where he belonged. 

“She looked so happy to see you. I didn’t figure it out at first, really I wasn’t sure until this moment, but I just remember, you used to make her so happy.” 

Suddenly it’s Rip that can’t breathe. 

“The last time I saw her we fought.” 

The last few times to be more accurate. 

It had all begun to feel like a mistake

“That makes two of us.”

There’s regret in her voice.

Regret that he feels as if it was his own. 

“Can you,” Laurel stops. She is crying now, he doesn’t have to look at her to be able to do, the sound of it is heavy in her voice.

But he does. 

It’s like looking at a ghost. 

Regret.

Regret.

Regret. 

He knows the question she’s going to ask before she asks it.

Still, he lets her find her words. 

“Can you use your time machine to bring her back?” 

“I can’t. I would if I could but-”  _ But this isn’t how time is supposed to go _ .

Sara’s path is already set.

This is not how Sara comes back.

Not now and not yet. 

The woman standing next to Rip will be the one to bring Sara back to life, months from now, and at the cost of her humanity. He cannot change that even if he wanted to, even if it would ease their suffering, even if it would save Sara from the pit sickness that plague the first few months of their time together.

Time travel has never been a means to cheat death, a lesson that Rip has learned the hard way through repeated trial and error.

There are some people that can’t be brought back. 

Some people who for death is permanent. 

Laurel Lance is one of them. 

And even though Sara is not… 

Telling her that her sister would return, may be but a small comfort. However, it one he cannot offer Laurel without endangering all of time. She must come to that conclusion on her own, in time. 

Instead, he says one of the few truths he can give. “My time ship is broken. Even if it wasn’t, there’s fixed points in time, things that have to happen and  _ this  _ is one of them. I’m sorry, Laurel, I can’t bring your sister back.”

_ Just as I can’t let her bring you back _ .

“What’s the point of having a time machine if you can’t save anyone?”

A younger Sara once asked him the very same question. 

Another similarity between the sisters. 

“I asked myself that almost every day.”  

 


	7. 2006

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to update sooner, but this chapter was massive... oops.

There’s no need to skip around. 

This time the jumpship takes him exactly where he wants to go.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Rip mutters under his breath as the dashboard of the jumpship reads out the year to him.

It’s October this time, in Central City, exactly where he needs to fix the jumpship and then go back home.

_ Home _ .

It was strange to think of the Waverider as home.

Home isn’t always a house in a set time period with a white picket fence. 

Home can be a time ship.

Home can be a team.

Home can be a _ person _ . 

Sara is his home, the one person he keeps being drawn back to throughout all of time. If this journey has taught him nothing else, at least he knows now that where he belongs is back at her side.

He can only hope that what he’s done here, meddling in her time, making her past  _ their  _ shared past, that it won’t change the woman he loves into something else, into someone else. 

 

*

 

Sara’s apartment is much the same as last time he saw it. Except for the lack of two naked people seconds away from getting in on on her couch. Something that Rip is relieved to find the room to be lacking. 

It’s the middle of the day this time, Sara out for the time being. 

In class.

Hopefully. 

Though judging from the set of books still in their plastic wrapping piled on a desk that looks like it gets more use when divvying up shots than actually working on school work, Rip cannot be sure.

What had Sara even been studying? 

Surely something other than  _ bartending and blowjobs _ .

He can’t remember if she ever mentioned it. 

The truth is, he never asked. 

Never in all the times visiting her past or even with his own Sara had he thought to wonder. Never had he wanted to know what she had planned for her life before a shipwreck threw her on a path to be a superhero and then the captain of a time ship. 

He’d ask that once he got back to his Sara. 

Until then. 

Stress cleaning Sara’s apartment while he waits for her to return seems like an acceptable answer. There’s enough of a mess that when he gets down to it, cleaning becomes sort of rhythmic, easy to lose himself in a rhythm that made it easy to forget about the rest of the universe. 

Which is probably why he doesn’t notice Sara coming in, until he heard the sound of a backpack hitting the floor, and a - “Holy fuck, Rip!”

“Ah yes, Sara, sorry for not calling ahead, I’m afraid -”

“Did you just break into my house?” 

She’s staring at him a little wide eyed, a pink pepper spray can in her hand like she had been ready to fight off whoever had broken in, but now held laxly between her fingers once she had found him in there. 

“You gave me the key?” He offers.

“I did,” she asks with confusion, before stopping and letting out a sigh. “Wait, this is something a future version of me did, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed.” 

The next noise she makes is almost a laugh, halfway there. He watches as she shoves the pepper spray back into her hoodie pocket and runs a hand through her hair in a semi-nervous manner.

It’s endearing. 

“Yeah well, I guess future me already lived through all this then, but fuck them,” she pauses, scrunching up her face in confusion. “Fuck me?”

“Try not to think about it too hard,” Rip offers, “Time travel makes things complicated.” 

“No shit.”

He grins at that. 

Her casual acceptance of all of this. 

She grins back at him.

“I bet it would be weird to meet some other version of myself,” Sara says, “Does that happen? Has that happened?”

There was something he had tried to forget about.

Meeting himself had been something else, awkward and uncomfortable, not an experience Rip really liked to dwell on. Talking about Doomworld, and missed opportunities, and second changes - and then dying. 

Watching his team die. 

Watching himself die.

Watching the woman he loved fade from existence. 

He’d left the team to get away from the memory of that day.

“It didn’t end well,” Rip settles on after a moment. “Actually that’s part of why my time ship is damaged.” 

“We broke the rules of time travel?” 

“You did,” Rip corrects. 

“Sounds like me,” Sara admits, before falling down onto her couch in a semi over dramatic way.  _ His  _ Sara had a habit of doing that as well, claiming the couch in his living quarters whenever she had come over to talk, spreading out so there was no room for anyone else to sit. He would hover against his desk back then, leaning casual, unwilling and unsure if he was welcome in the space she had claimed as her own.

Here in a space that so clearly belongs to Sara, Rip leans against the wall opposite her. 

“Do you think before things went back I had a chance to  _ experiment  _ with myself? I mean did you?”

“Did I do what?”

“Like you know, wouldn’t you want to have sex with yourself, if you ever met another version of you? Would that even count as sex or-”

“Why do you think of these things?”

“You’re honestly telling me you didn’t think about it?”

“No, God, no.” 

The thing is, he’s not even surprised that she would think of that. 

He was certain had things not been so intense when they did meet their future selves that his  _ Sara  _ would have acted upon the same ideas of this version of Sara.

It was a very Sara impulse.

One which Rip could never fathom on his own and yet is not nearly as surprised to hear it come from Sara’s mouth.

“I mean can you just imagine how much- Wait,” Sara stops suddenly and he couldn’t be happier. He can only guess how that sentence would have ended and he’s not certain he wants to hear about it. Her next words are spoken with a sort awed confusion, “Wait, Rip, did you clean?”

“I may have.” 

Another laugh. This one more genuine than the first. He can tell the minute differences between her laughs, catalogues each of them carefully. 

“You would.”

“I feel like that’s an insult.” 

“No, I just know you that well.” 

He wants to ask  _ how _ . 

As far as this Sara knows they’ve only met three times, two when she was much younger. Had he given himself away that much, or was it just her instinctual way of knowing him sometimes better than he knew himself, that gave him away. 

“Alright then, so what else did future me tell you, other than where I live and how to get in?” 

“You told me that October 2006 is where I can finally fix my ship and head home.”

Home. 

Soon. 

Very soon.

He barely notices that he’s smiling until Sara mirrors him, “Okay then, did I tell you how?” 

 

*

 

He spends the first day exhausting all options he can think of with Sara. 

Reaching out to his few and barely trusted time pirate contacts. 

(“I can’t believe time pirates are a real thing!”)

Speculating on where a time drive might be hidden without anyone any wiser.

(“It glows blue, Rip, like somebody would have noticed if one was lying around bu now!”

Eating copious amounts of fast food. 

(“Not as good as the Big Belly Burger in Starling City, but close enough that I’ll forgive them.”)

Failing to find any leads.

Giving up. 

“But you said that future me tells you this is the place for it right?”

“Right,” Rip agrees reluctantly. “The only problem is, you didn’t tell me where?”

“Probably for the best,” Sara says, as she sticks fries into her milkshake. It’s disgusting, but Rip doesn’t bother telling her as much, she won’t listen. “I mean, wouldn’t you knowing about it, endanger the time stream or something? You know, those vague rules of time travel you keep going on and on about?” 

‘I suppose that is true.” 

Still he regrets not asking when one day turns into two.

And then three.

And then four. 

 

*

 

A week with no success and he almost wants to hop back into the jumpship and find some future version of Sara to ask her how they found what he needed to repair the time drive. 

But that would mean not knowing where he could end up. 

After 2015, he wasn’t sure he want that.

Wasn’t sure he could handle something like that again.

The guilt still was there in the back of his mind. Especially after his conversation with Laurel. 

Enough that in the quiet moments when nothing seems to be working, it comes out again, eating away at him slowly. 

He watches Sara as she moves about the apartment, shedding layers now that she’s off work for the evening, and he can’t help but wonder how much she would hate him if she knew.

“Are you mad at me,” she says, as if sensing his eyes on her, and Rip cannot help but feel the irony, as he was just thinking about how mad Sara would be at him had she known he talked with Laurel and didn’t do anything to prevent her eventual demise. 

“Why would you ask that?”

Sara shrugs, causing her loose t-shirt to slip down over her shoulder. “You’ve got this look in your eyes. Maybe it’s not angry, more like sad, like you can’t stand to look at me. It comes over you every so often, not all the time, but sometimes when you’re thinking it’s like you’ve seen-”

She stops talking. 

Eyes just a bit too wide. 

“Sara?”

“Like you’ve seen a ghost.” 

He immediately feels guilty. This wasn’t what he wanted, he hadn’t meant to give himself away at all, but the memory of standing in front of Sara’s gravestone with Laurel is all too real. The  _ ghosts  _ are ever present there, time travel being but a way to cheat the system not to permanently change it, and Rip can’t - 

“I thought you said,” Sara’s voice is rushed and tight, because while he has begun to panic she has jumped to all sorts of conclusions. “You said I was  _ immortal  _ once, or was that just something you said to placate me as a little kid?”

“The future is complicated. The world changes in a way you can’t even wrap your head around right now - that’s not an insult on your intelligence, Sara, you are one of the most intelligent people I know - it’s just time travel has intricacies that even I do not fully understand.”

“Of course it does.”

“I am awful at explaining things, but I know I tried to before. Remember how each decision we make now impacts the future like-”

“The butterfly effect?”

“Similar,” he concedes. “Me being here now, changes things, affects my own future because this hadn’t happened when I first met you or maybe it had, it’s complicated-” He didn’t think that it had. Everything they went through when they were first a team, no, there was no way Sara knew all about this and all about them back then, which meant he was messing up time more with each passing moment. “-Time is ever changing, what I do now changes the future and every time I go forward things are different because the past has already happened. I just left a future where you weren’t there, and it was unbearable. Even if I know it isn’t the way things will remain, the thought of living in a world without you hurts.” 

“So what is this then? You interfering with my life? Some grad time travel mission to save me from the past and stop me from dying?”

And oh, if that doesn’t hurt.

If it isn’t too close to another truth.

Another failure that he is forced to live his life by.

Another sign that he is not fit to be captain. 

Another woman he loved he could not save. 

Another bit of proof that  _ this  _ will not end well between them.

The people Rip love have a habit of dying.

“You sound as if you were the one to kill me,” Sara says, softer now, and it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

He doesn’t think when he blurts out the words, “I did, once.” 

“Rip?”

He can’t talk about that, not now, not with her.

“I should go. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t-”

Her hand grabs onto his own holding him in place.

“It wasn’t real.” 

“You don’t know-” 

“You’re not allowed to leave me.” 

Her words are firm and steady and refusing to be questioned. 

So he stays.

Stays even though she would be safer without him around.

Even though he is shaking, and the self hate from before is only rising up again. He never got to apologize to his Sara for this, not properly, she had dismissed his concerns, insisting that it wasn’t really him and that since she had survived that none of that mattered in the end. What mattered is that they were there and they survived. 

He doesn’t realize he’s crying until her other hand reaches up to brush the tears away from his face. 

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, you - you have a right to know.” 

“Even if it breaks the rules of time travel?”

He makes a noise not quite a laugh, “That’s always been the problem with me, never following the rules properly. That was why the council kicked me out, actually.” 

“Tell me about it?”

It’s an opening to be distracted, to talk about anything else, to tell some story from his academy days that will distract them both from the hurt that is so clearly there.

He should take it, should take the chance to talk about something else, but it’s been so long and he took this trip to find himself, to find his place in the universe, and to  _ mourn _ . 

He can’t help himself. 

“I lost someone, two someones actually, that I loved beyond all else, because I got so caught up in traveling and doing what the Time Master’s asked of me that I never stopped to realize how wrong everything was. I never took the time to appreciate them, not properly, and now they’re death is a fixed point in time and it hurts, hurts so much that some days I forget how to function,” Rip admits. “But what hurts almost just as much, is the thought that I’m going to do the same with you.” 

“You’re not going to lose me,” Sara says, her grip still steady on his hand. 

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” she insists, “Because I know how I feel about you.” 

He wishes he had her self-assurance. 

“I left you and our team, because I was afraid,” Rip says, “And now all I want to do is get back.” 

“Then I’m going to help you get back, if it is the last thing I do.” 

 

*

 

The next morning they don’t talk about it. 

Which is probably for the best.

Even if it makes his heart ache, even if his hands shake as he makes his morning tea, only made worse by the way Sara’s gaze lingers on him from her kitchen table. Eyes too blue and still carrying her sorrow. 

His voice is heavy when he speaks, “I shouldn’t have said anything.” 

“No, it’s fine… It was important.” 

“Sara-” 

“I’m going to figure this out. Just give me the day,” Sara insists, before getting out of her chair. 

She crosses over so that she is mere inches from him. Close enough to reach out and touch. To hold onto the one constant that time seems set to give him.

But he doesn’t.

Doesn’t bridge the gap between them. 

He just watches as Sara pours herself her own cup of tea. 

 

*

 

“I’ve come up with a plan to fix you ship,” Sara says in that evening, before sticking an unbuttered and only slightly toasted waffle into her mouth.

Waffles for dinner.

Barely cooked waffles for dinner.

He supposed it was better than Big Belly Burger, but then again the bar had been set very low. 

Rip focuses on her mentioning a  _ plan  _ rather than her poor dietary habits.

“You have?”

“We’re going to break into Star Labs.”

_ Oh _ .

Star Labs.

Of course, that would make the most sense. 

With Eobard Thawne trapped there, he would undoubtedly have future technology, the sort of thing that Rip would be able to use to fix his ship. Though this would almost mean running the risk of running into Thawne, something Rip never wanted to repeat again, but perhaps - perhaps it was worth the risk.

After all, he had the gift of foresight thanks to Sara, already knowing that he would be able to get the part he needed during this trip.

He would just have to plan it out carefully to account for the likelihood of an encounter with Thawne.

“That sounds perfect.”

“Really,” Sara sounds shocked. As if this was not her idea. “I mean, I expected you to object a bit more, but okay?”

Explaining that Star Labs is run by a time traveling speedster seems like a bad idea, so instead he bluffs a bit.

“It makes perfect sense, Star Labs is at the edge of cutting new technology, if anyone would have anything close to what we need it would be there. Honestly, I’m more ashamed that I didn’t think of it myself.”

Sara’s shock shifts to pride easily. “Well, not all of us can be geniuses.” 

 

*

 

“We should break in on Halloween. For the irony.”

“Isn’t Halloween is on a Tuesday this year? It would be easier to break in on a Sunday, less security.”

“You say this like someone with experience breaking into places.” 

He shrugs.

“Well, there was NASA.” 

“Wait, what happened to NASA?”

“Nothing too important.” 

“Rip Hunter, you will tell me what happened at NASA this instant.”

“Yes well you see, it is quite complicated.” 

He gets a pillow to the face for all his troubles.

 

*

 

They’re staring over blueprint of Star Labs when Sara says, “This reminds me of Paris.”

“Paris?” Rip asks, pausing, “What happened in Paris?” 

“You don’t remember? Or wait - has it not happened to you yet?” 

“We go to Paris?” 

Sara grins at him, silly and teasing, he suddenly doesn’t know whether to trust her or not. She has to be joking right, there was no excuse for that smile, especially not when she’s look at him with mischief in her eyes. 

He can’t imagine taking her to Paris.

The idea of removing Sara from the time stream even for a moment before it is her time is something that Rip feels like he wouldn’t do. Under no circumstances. Especially not since he was he was supposed to be heading home after this stop.

Well, maybe with a brief stay over in 2014, since Laurel had already mentioned it, but otherwise…

_ Paris  _ was certainly off the table. 

“If I tell you something that hasn’t happened for you yet, does that make it more or less real,” Sara asks. “Or is this another case of time travel being complicated?”

“Miss Lance, I fear you may yet be the death of me.”

“Well, I do try.”

 

*

 

“So tomorrow night-”

“I thought we agreed on Sunday.” 

“We did,” Sara agrees, “But tomorrow is this big Halloween party and-”

“Oh,” Rip tries to keep his distaste out of his voice, tries and fails, “Have fun.”

“You should come with me.” 

“I don’t know if you’ve realized this but I am a bit old to be a college student.”

Sara squints at him. As if finally realizing their age difference currently. 

“Good thing I’m into older men.” 

“I’m not dignifying that with a response.”

“You could easily pass for a grad student, I mean, how old are you anyways?” 

Rip honestly isn’t sure.

He’s lost count.

Nobody really ages in the Vanishing Point. 

And the more time you spend in the time stream the slower you age to begin with. 

There was a vaguely defined childhood. 

There was the academy and with Miranda and then working for the Time Master’s.

There was the ten years between the loss of his family and gathering the team.

There was the two years traveling with them.

There was his brief break as Phil. 

It didn’t add up easily. 

“I’m not sure.” 

Sara gives him a confused look, “Please tell me you’re not secretly eighty.” 

He might be.

He could be.

The years blended together, but he didn’t feel that old. 

And  yet. 

“Rip, you look like your brain just died.” 

“It may very well have.” 

Sara laughs at him, “Okay well, it doesn’t matter,” she says, like he is not having an internal crisis, “Because you look like thrity max, totally grad student age, and totally down to go to this party!” 

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea. I won’t stop you from your fun, but I could be here planning or-”

“We’ve gone over the plan eighty times-”

“Seven.”

“Wow, Rip, excuse you, I know math,” Sara teases. “The point is, we’ve got this. And I’ve  _ got  _ a costume for you already, so we’re going to this party.” 

“Sara-” 

She covers up his mouth to stop him. When she speaks next it is with a poor imitation of his accent, “Oh yes, thank you, Sara, I would love to go to this party with you.” 

She then goes back to her normal voice. “I’m so glad you see my side of things” 

 

*

 

“This is a bad idea.”

“You know,” Sara says, “You’ve said that before, and I ignored you before.” 

“Someone is going to realize that I don’t belong here.”

“No, they’re not because we’re going to be in costume and also everyone will be drunk,” Sara insists. 

Which brought Rip back to the problem at hand.

The costume. 

Sara has been so proud when she presented it to him ten minutes before, insisting that he could even keep his trench coat on. 

Because the irony of dressing a real time traveler as a fictional time traveler was the greatest inside joke she had ever created. At least in Sara’s opinion. 

“About the costume, Sara-”

She spins to look at him at the sound of her name, the pink dress she’s wearing to be the  _ Rose  _ to his  _ Doctor, _ is much too short to be accurate but flares out around her in an attractive way that leaves Rip momentarily distracted.

Momentarily, only though.

She’s beautiful in a way that is meant to be tempting, but he knows rationally that the temptation is not for him. It is for whatever drunk frat boy she feels inclined to go to bed with tonight. Something Rip had been trying not to think about.

“Look it was this or Star Wars.”

This time it is Rip’s turn to laugh.

Sara narrows her eyes at him, “What’s funny about Star Wars.”

“It’s just,” Rip pauses, tries to contain himself, because  _ that  _ was true irony. “George Lucas and I were roommates in college.” 

It takes five seconds for the words to fully process, he can see the instant it does, the second Sara goes from being confused to  _ holy shit _ . Being able to impress her is a novelty that seems to only be able to achieved by meeting younger versions of her. 

Rip will miss this at the very least. 

“Holy fuck, Rip!”

“It’s not that big of a deal.”

“This is a huge deal! You’re telling me that George Motherfucking Lucas, creator of Star Wars and our lord and savior Leia Organa, is a time traveler? Do I meet him? Are we friends?”

“You’ve met,” Rip replies, “Though he’s not a time traveler, actually we met while I was in film school.”

He didn’t think Sara could become more surprised, but somehow she manages it.

“You went to film school,” she asks incredulously. “I thought you went to time school.”

“I’ve been to both.” 

“So like, fuck Rip, we’re you like a normal person, who just happened to end up going time traveler after dropping out of film school or - fuck? How does that even work?” 

“It’s-”

“If you say  _ complicated _ , I will literally kill you.” 

He gives her a sort of half smile. 

“Well, it is.” 

 

*

 

The party was a bad idea, just as Rip had predicted. Certainly, nobody noticed that he didn’t  belong there, nobody questioned why a  _ grad student  _ was attending an undergraduate party. The only comments he really got in his direction was what kind of beer he liked to drink and vague compliments on his costume. 

Some drunk co-ed clasped him on the shoulder at one point to just say “Fucking time travel, holy shit, fucking shit man,” and stumble off in the opposite direction, a statement which Rip felt connected to on a fundamental level.

_ Fucking time travel _ . 

So while the party was a bad idea.

It wasn’t a bad idea in any of the ways he had expected. 

It was a bad idea because he was  _ jealous _ . 

Something Sara had called him on before, would call him on soon again, and something that Rip could not deny here, as he leaned against the wall, a beer growing warm in his hand while he watched college students drinking and dancing.

Watching other people put their hands on Sara’s waist, whisper into her ear, invite her upstairs and - 

And he suddenly needs to leave to get some fresh air. 

Rip sets his beer down and heads for the door, avoiding the rest of the party, ready to head back to the jumpship for the night and give Sara the privacy of her apartment for whatever she wanted to get up to.

But he’s stopped before he can make it off the front lawn of the fraternity house they’ve come to for the party by a hand warm and steady against his wrist. 

“Rip.” 

Her voice is like a knife, cutting through his defenses. 

“Where are you going?”

_ Home _ . 

The word never makes it to his lips. 

“I just needed some air,” he turns back to her as he says the words. Her makeup is smudged, she’s lost the pink scarf she had tied up in her hair, but she looks as beautiful as always. 

“Walk me home, Rip.” 

She’s giving him an out. She’s giving them an out.

Instead he insists, “There’s no need to leave early on my account.” 

She shakes her head, a motion that seems to cause her whole body to sway. Sara has had a lot more to drink than he has. Whether that was due to not knowing her limits yet, or just not caring, Rip wasn’t sure. 

“Sara-”

“Come on, back to my place,” she insists, letting go of him to walk in the general direction of her place. 

Thankfully, Rip remembered how they had gotten there in the beginning of the night and is able to navigate them semi-well back to their direction. Half-way through the walk Sara takes to leaning against him as a substitute for her stumbling about, and Rip brings his arm up around the waist to steady her and pull her tighter to him. 

Support, that’s all this is. At least, that’s what he tells himself. 

The walk back isn’t long, not enough for Rip to focus on anything other than getting Sara back safe and sound.

It all goes well until they’re standing outside of her door, Rip fumbling with the key, slowly realizing that he may have had a bit more to drink that he expected, and Sara, stops him - 

Grabs the lapels of his jacket, to turn him towards her. 

“If you just give me a second, I’ll have the door open and-”

She kisses him.

It’s messy and tastes like cheap alcohol, and then she is falling against him. This is nothing like the last time they kissed. It’s not romantic, nor tinged with remorse. This kiss is nothing more than a drunken impulse, and Rip has no problem freezing beneath her lips, refusing to give into his baser impulses.

Sara seems to realize he’s not kissing her back, because she pulls away from him. A small frown there.

“Sorry.” 

“It’s alright,” he reassures her quickly. “Drink gets the best of us sometimes.”

“No, I, Rip, I don’t think I’m ready to be in love with you yet,” she slurs slightly, leaning against him, and Rip can’t process that, can’t begin to explain what it means and what the greater implications are. She’s drunk, he rationalizes it, very drunk. “I’d fuck you though, you’re real hot, and I bet you’d take it nice slow, make love all proper and shit.” 

She’s drunk.

That’s why this is easier to say. 

“I’m not going to sleep with you Sara. Not while you’re drunk and going to forget about it in the morning. I want it to be special, and I want it the first time to be with  _ my  _ Sara.” 

“You must really love me in the future,” she insists, and it’s that word again. 

The one that has his hands shaking against her. 

_ Love _ . 

Before he can respond, Sara takes the key to the door from him, and jams it into the lock with practiced accuracy, it’s then that she stumbles away from him. Making a poor attempt to shove off the layers of her costume. He goes to help her when her hands fail to catch the zipper at her back. 

Her “Thanks,” is quiet, muted, and Rip averts his gaze as he goes to pull a sleepshirt over her head. 

He only looks at her when she speaks once more, words similar but different to ones she had said before, “Sleep with me, Rip.” 

“I thought we just established-”

“Not like that,” Sara says, “I promise, I won’t try to touch your dick.” A small hiccup of a laugh, before she seems to briefly sober up, at least enough to admit. “I just don’t want to be alone tonight.” 

There’s something about the causal mix of sincerity and innuendo that is charming.

“Okay,” he says, with only the slightest hint of hesitance. 

He takes off his jacket. Takes off the rest of the costume until he is left only in his pants. Making certain to deliberately ignore the way Sara’s eyes are still on him.

She settles against him the second he is bed beside her, curling up into his space, but not making a move to anything more. He wonders for a second if she can hear the rapid beating of his heart, the way it thunders against his chest. 

She’s asleep before he can check to ask. 

And so he lays there, listening to the sound of the woman he loves breathing in bed beside him, until he finally falls asleep. 

 

*

 

“We didn’t sleep together, did we?”

“No,” he says quickly and honestly. 

Despite waking up in bed together, it was nothing but innocent, though he can tell Sara has been wanting to ask that since they both got up and began making their hangover cure breakfast.

Seeing relief on her face, while feeling relief settle into his bones, is a good feeling.

She didn’t remember last night, didn’t remember anything that had been said. This was for the best. It wasn’t time yet for her to know.

“Good,” Sara says, adjusting the sunglasses she has on indoors, before tossing a bottle of painkillers his way. “And I didn’t say anything embarrassing or do anything like that?”

This time he is less honest.

But it’s better this way. 

“No, nothing at all.” 

“Good,” she says again. And just like that the topic is dropped, pushed aside, forgotten about. “You ready to break into Star Labs?”

 

*

 

Breaking into Star Labs is easy. 

Almost too easy.

Rip’s only broken into a few places, despite how he tried to talk himself up to Sara, he was only really able to do so due to the help of the rest of the team and the resources he had thanks to being on the Waverider. If he was being honest with himself, he had been tempted to look up Snart and Rory in this timeline, they were the ones who always had the experience with these sorts of things.

But they had managed so far.

Oddly enough.

Which is why, despite Sara’s excitement at them getting in, Rip cannot help but feel a strong sense of unease. 

This is Eobard Thawne’s domain. 

The head of the Legion of Doom, a man who had literally plucked Rip’s thoughts from his mind and turned them into something dark and horrifying, turning him into someone that had been willing to kill the woman he loved without any hint of remorse, like she didn’t even matter. 

He looks at Sara now, her black beanie pulled down over her head, a scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face - and all he can think about is how she had looked back in 1776, dying underneath his hand as he -

“We should split up,” Rip says quickly, too quickly to remember to whisper, and Sara looks at him with a look that is not quiet surprise. He wonders again how she cannot hear the pounding of his heart, this time not with nerves but with fear of what he could do to her and the memory of what he has. “We will cover more ground quicker that way.”

“Okay, yeah,” she nods, giving him a wary look but accepting it. “Time drives are blue and they glow, right? Should be easy enough for me to tell if I find it.” 

“Yes, exactly,” he says, “Meet back here in twenty minutes.” 

She nods again, and then heads off down the hallway to the left while Rip heads right.

With each step he puts between them it gets easier to breathe, less panicked - now he just had to find the piece of technology that didn’t quiet belong there. Being trained by the Time Master’s makes this easier, historical inaccuracies sticking out like a sore thumb, which was why when he crosses into a certain hallway he can instantly tell that something wasn’t right. 

Rip runs his hand along the wall feeling where old technology meets new and a door not unlike those on the Waverider appears.

A Time Vault. 

A mechanical voice greets him the second he steps inside, not quite familiar, not quite _his_ , but similar enough that Rip freezes in place, “Welcome, Captain Hunter.” 

Especially considering the voice knows who he is. 

“Yes, hello-” He says a bit anxiously, “What may I call you?”

“My name is Gideon.”

_ Gideon _ . 

Suddenly breathing doesn’t become an option.

She doesn’t react like his Gideon, doesn’t carry the exact tone, but the name is the same. An earlier prototype maybe? A bastardization created or stolen by Eobard Thawne. Neither is a pleasant thought. 

Is there anyone Rip has left to love that Thawne has not soiled? 

“How man I assist you?” 

He pushes past the discomfort to focus on the task at hand. 

This is what it would take to get home. 

“I need parts to repair a fractured time drive.” 

No sooner are the words out of his mouth that things go sideways.

Predictable.

Rip is not surprised, to feel the tell tale rush of air that comes with a speedster, breaking in here was  _ too  _ easy after all. In fact, his biggest surprise comes when the face staring at him is not the face of Eobard Thawne but rather Harrison Wells, or the man who was once Harrison Wells. 

Honestly he was surprised he had made it this far.

He had planned for this.

Despite the fact that it making a deal with him made Rip feel sick to his stomach.

Despite the fact that this was the man who had manipulated him into killing his friends and then created a world to become their personal hell.

Despite the fact that giving him a piece of future technology violated a series of Time Master rules that could have the gravest possible effects on the time stream. 

His priority is with Sara, with getting her safely out of here, and then secondly, repairing his time drive.

And, as it was, the advantage of time travel, meant that Rip already knows this will work.

“Give me one good reason not to kill you and your little girlfriend poking about my lab?”

“Because Mr. Thawne, you are and I are not entirely dissimilar.”

If Thawne is surprised by Rip knowing him, it does not show on his stolen features. “Is that right?”

“We both are from a future that we desperately want to get back to,” Rip says. “And I believe you have something that will assist me in that process. In exchange for something you’ve been looking for.” 

 

*

 

Not thinking about the potential ramifications of his meddling in time is for the best. 

Getting out of the lab before Thawne changes his mind is also for the best. 

Which means grabbing Sara and -

“I looked everywhere I could, but there was nothing that glowed blue or-”

“I found it.” 

Sara’s entire face lights up, “That’s convenient!” 

“Yes, very,” Rip agrees, “We should get out of here, before things get complicated.” 

“That’s your favorite word, isn’t it?” 

 

*

 

They’re back at Sara’s apartment. 

Still dressed in all black, drinking celebratory beers over what is going to be able to fix his Time Drive. The adrenaline is still there pushing through his veins, and the realization that he did it.

That this is it.

He finally gets to go home to his team.

To his Sara. 

Back where he truly belongs.

“So,” this Sara says, clinking their bottles together, “I guess this is it then… Heading back to the future in the morning?”

“Well, it might take me a day to get everything put together properly, but that is indeed the plan.”

Maybe a brief stop in 2014, since Laurel had mentioned as much, but then it would be back to the team. 

Rip can’t help a smile from finding its way onto his face.

“It is sort of exciting to be finally heading back.” 

_ Finally _ .

“I’ll bet,” Sara says, her voice going quieter. 

It is then that Rip notices that she does not share his excitement. That her features have turned downwards into a frown. 

“Sara, what’s wrong?” 

“It’s nothing.” 

Pushing her is a mistake, he knows it the second he does, but her name falls from his lips a second time in spite of that, “Sara?”

Because the next thing she does is blurt out, “I think I'm in love with you.”

And he heard these words before, words not dissimilar, when she was drunk. He should have known they would eventually be coming while she was sober. I just hadn’t meant he was any more prepared to hear them. 

Blurting out, “What,” was a side effect of that. 

“I said I think-”

“No, stop,” Rip says quickly trying to recover. “I did hear you I just... Sara, you can't be.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re not together in the future.”

“Bullshit.”

“Sara-” 

“You don't randomly interfere with someone's life, you don't becomes their guardian angel, and then take them to Paris-”

“What happened in-”

“-You don't do all that for someone you don't love.”

It hurts him to say it, hurts more than she can ever know but this is too soon and,”I don't love you.”

It’s a lie.

A lie that hurts him because he loves her.

Truly.

More than anything he has in a long while.

So much that it scares him. 

He has loved her for longer than he’s been willing to admit, maybe only realizing how that he was traveling around away from the version of Sara that he could call  _ his _ .

Watching this Sara - who he loved, he did, he loved every version of her - have her heart broken was something he never could have prepared himself for. 

“Fuck you, Rip Hunter,” she says sounding angry and sad at the same itme “Why are you even here?”

“To fix my time ship.”

She repeats his words with a fury, “To fix your-”

“This is my fault really,” Rip cuts her off. “I never thought this through never thought about the repercussions of spending time with younger versions of you but I can now clearly see that this was a mistake. The future you is going to hate me for this-”

“Yeah, for breaking my heart? I wouldn't blame me.”

_ I wouldn’t blame you either _ . 

“I hate you,” Sara says, she’s crying, scrubbing at her face to hide the tears, but she is. And it’s his fault. “Before you came around, I had dreams and goals, I wanted to be a nurse, I wanted to help people. But what’s the fucking point? I know I’m going to end up traveling through time, and suddenly I have no choice in the matter! My future has already been decided! Has already been  _ ruined  _ by you!”

“I never meant to-”

“No. I don’t suppose you meant any of this did you! You didn’t even want to be here, to be around me...”

He needs to leave before he says anything to make this. 

Before he gives into the impulse to fight back at Sara. To say all the things that had been on his mind. To let her push him as she has been known to.

He takes a deep breath to steady himself, in and out, before grabbing the makeshift time drive off the table. “I’m leaving.” 

“Good,” she snaps. 

_ Good _ .

The word hangs there in the air, as he turns away from her, shrugging his trench coat back on. He doesn’t know where he’s going - back to the jumpship, that is certain, and then to a different point in time. 

Somewhere else to repair the ship.

Somewhere away from 2006.

“I hate you,” she says again, it’s weaker this time, and it causes Rip to hesitate in the doorway. 

He needs to hear this. 

Needs to let her hate wash over him.

Let it fuel the guilt that has been eating him alive.

Guilt seems to be Rip’s primary emotion these days. 

“I hate that I’m in love with you, that I always have been, and I always will be, and that you ruined me for any other life I might have had.”

He leaves without saying another word. 

  
  



	8. 2005

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are nearly at the end guys! I hope you are enjoying this story - and thank you to the amazing people who have left comments, honestly you are what drive me to keep writing this fic!

When the ship stops his first thought is that he’s been to this park before. His second is a continued exasperation with the damaged time drive and it’s constant need to take him back to Starling City as often as possible.

The clock reads out: May, 2005. 

He tries not to think about how old Sara would be this time, or where she would be. He just focuses on repairing the ship. It shouldn’t take long, maybe a few hours of work, and then with one last stop he would be done with this journey. 

Three hours was the maximum time in this period that he had allotted himself. 

Of course, it is just as predictable, that when thirty minutes into working on the repairs he hears a knock on the side of his ship.

Without fully moving away from his repairs, Rip stretches his arm out to press the button which will open the door, not even needing to look to know who it is. 

“Good afternoon, Miss Lance.” 

“I thought we agreed that you’d call me, Sara.” 

“We did,” Rip concedes,as though he’d forgotten. 

After his last stop he was no longer sure that he should be afforded the familiarity. 

He glances at her briefly, just to take stock of her to assure himself this is real, before simply saying, “Make sure to close the door,” and going back to his work. 

She makes a noise of agreement, doing so as instructed, and he can vaguely hear the sounds of her settling around the ship, moving about it with familiarity even though this is only her third time on the jump ship.

“I thought you would be surprised to see me? I mean, I was surprised to see your ship, after all this time...” 

“There’s very little that can surprise me anymore.” 

“That sounds like a challenge,” Sara replies too quickly.

For a second, Rip’s hands hover over where he is working. He didn’t like the sound of that at all, and knowing Sara.

“Please don’t.”

She laughs at him, bright and happy, and not like the Sara he had left behind who had been angry and crying and - 

“I missed you.” 

It is sudden and full of emotion, the sort of hesitant that he has knows now that he carries at this age, that she will try to cover up once her college years before, and which she will then lose to the sea when the Gambit goes down.

He has learned all the different shades of Sara, and yet, he still doesn’t know how to respond to her. 

In the end he does. He simply goes back to work and lets her have her moment. Knowing her, what is on her mind, will eventually come out. 

Not five minutes later it does. This time starting with a question, a lead in - “You’ve nearly finished fixing this thing up, then?”

Rip nods his head. “Just this one last thing, and then I’ll be heading back to my time with a perfectly functional jumpship.” 

“That’s good,” she insists. Sounding as if she believes the exact opposite. 

She’s silent again for a few minutes. 

Then - “Watching you work on the ship reminds me of the first time I met you. I mean, I was so little, but you look about the same.” 

He feels it as well. 

The nostalgia, even if it isn’t for a time as far off as the one she is remembering. 

“You’re still little to me.” 

Sara makes a half offended noise at that, but doesn’t rise to the bait, instead she asks, “Before you go back, could we take a trip or something? Somewhere in the future? Somewhere  _ romantic _ .”

The word  _ romantic  _ causes a jolt to go through him. remembering the Sara that he had left behind, the one whose heart he broke in order to protect the future. It was for the greater good, he still held by that decision, even now if it made looking at this younger version of Sara so much harder to do. 

He doesn’t mention that, instead he barely looks up from the time drive is he repairing to ask, “Where would we go?”

“Paris,” she says instantly and instinctively. 

_ Of course _ . 

There was no way he was actually taking her there, it simply wasn’t possible, removing Sara from the time stream too early could have the gravest possible effect. Being removed from the time stream changed people, even if it was just for a few hours, and he had already meddlign with Sara’s life enough.

“Why are you fixated on that city?” 

He expects her to deny it, but she says nothing for a long moment, and when Rip does finally look away from his work to glance at Sara, there’s a sort of shocked expression on her face. “You told me once, years ago, that we go to France in the future, and I just thought - it was an impulse.” 

Rip makes a vague noise of acknowledgement. He supposed he did. For Rip it was a few weeks ago, not even two months ago, but for Sara it was  _ years _ . 

He somehow forgot about that. 

“I’m still not taking you to Paris.”

“Still,” Sara repeats that word with a tone of exasperation, “I  _ just  _ suggested it.” She lets out a dramatic sigh, and Rip knows at once that he’s going to have to abandon his work for the  moment. “But somewhere else then?”

“I can’t, Sara,” Rip says, trying to at least sound apologetic, “I can’t remove you from the time stream.” 

He’s expecting disappointment, maybe anger, but Sara just rolls her eyes. “Yes, because that worked so well before.” 

“What do you mean  _ before _ ,” Rip asks. 

This was supposed to be the last stop - well, 2014 next, and then that was it, enough interfering with Sara’s life. 

Another stop would mean - 

“Last year? With that crazy lady at the police station, and you guys  _ pretending  _ to be part of Argus or whatever. Look, I’m not stupid, Rip. I’ve seen you around enough to recognize you and there’s no way I could somehow miss recognizing  _ myself _ , especially since I know that time travel exists.” 

“Oh fuck me.”

She wasn’t supposed to remember that. They had given everyone the memory altering pills Gideon made. The incident with the Pilgrim should have been well forgotten by now. But here was Sara was looking at him with the clear expression of someone who  _ did  _ remember, and who had been aware the whole time that they were time travelers.

Already his traveling was interfering with events that Rip had participated in.

He may not have the memory of the new changes to the timeline due to actively traveling through time and causing them, but the side effect was right here in front of them. 

Sara’s still talking, he realizes belatedly, “-Mick didn’t realize, well not until we were staying at that house, but I saw us! I saw my ship, and the team you keep telling me about - and the world didn’t end. You guys put me back here and life moved on like it had never happened, so what is one trip in this ship going to change?”

Rip rubs at his temples to try and dispel the headache there.

“You weren’t supposed to remember that.” 

Sara snorts. “Yeah, did you honestly believe I was going to take the  _ forget the future  _ pill?”

_ You did the first time around _ . 

“You know, Rip, you were kind of a little shit when you were a kid.”

“Excuse me?”

“How do you even get  _ Rip  _ out of  _ Michael,  _ I mean - it doesn’t make any -”

“The Time Master’s renamed me,” Rip says quickly in his defense, “And no. that that’s the point, because you shouldn’t remember any of that even happened.”

Sara makes a face at him. 

“I looked Mick up afterward. He’s seventeen years older than me and serving a life sentence in Iron Heights, which makes me really curious about the fact that apparently we time travel break someone out of jail, but hey- no judgment. He still remembers too.”

“For fuck’s sake-”

“Then I started looking up the rest too, see, I knew you said we were time travelers, like a whole team of us, but I don’t know… I guess, it didn’t really hit me how real that was until last year and well, it’s all there if you know where to look,” Sara insists. She looks excited, whereas all Rip can feel is dread. “There’s the moon landing, and the pentagon, and this old photograph from Chicago. Then there’s the fact that HG Wells wrote a book about laser guns and a lady gunslinger in the wild west, who I’m pretty sure is supposed to be me. And, Sir Lancelot, gets drawn as a  _ blonde woman  _ in some adaptions. I’m not saying  _ Sara Lance  _ sounds like  _ Sir Lancelot _ , but here we are.” 

And there it was, the inevitable breakdown of time. 

He wouldn’t be surprised if there was another time storm brewing, this one of his own making, all due to the fact that he couldn’t help but interfere in the life of Sara Lance. That he could resist. 

There was only one way to fix this. 

He’d have to take the memories away from her, maybe not here and now, she was young enough and there was enough of her life that he would continue meddle in to make it not the most ideal time. 

If he took her memory of finding out about their adventures away now, there was still a chance that she would find them again in 2006 or 2010 or 2014 or -

  1. _2014_. 



His next stop. 

His last stop. 

He’d have to erase all of this, every stop he had made since he took the jumpship and left the team, it was the only way to make sure that time stayed intact and to make sure that the Sara he would eventually go back to would still be the Sara that he had left behind. 

Taking those memories from her, memories of their time together, it would hurt - but maybe it was better that way. Things hurt enough as it was. 

This wouldn’t be the first time Rip had put his sentiment aside for the sake of all of time. 

It likely wouldn’t be the last. 

Until then, why not enjoy this one last moment. 

He looks up then, to meet Sara’s hopeful and happy eyes, and figures:  _ what’s the worst that could happen, when it’s all about to go away _ . 

“You know, actually, you probably are Sir Lancelot. I’m not sure, I was a little busy being brainwashed at the time, but-”

“Wait, hold on, brainwashed?” 

 


	9. 2014

He finds her in 2014, exactly when and where she’s supposed to be. Sitting at Big Belly Burger, waiting for someone that isn’t him to arrive. 

“Rip Hunter,” Sara says his name like it’s the very first time.

When was the last time that they saw each other on her end?

2010,  São Paulo . 

That hadn’t ended well, and yet the Sara before him was not the angry assassin of the League. She was also not the young woman Rip had spent much of his time with. Nor the child that had been so innocent. 

She was the closest she would ever be to  _ his  _ Sara. 

Which made this a fitting last time. 

“Sara Lance,” he replies, with that same tone, taking the seat across from her. 

She grins at him, wild and free, and so like  _ his  _ Sara. So like the version of her that he was doing all of this to get back to. 

“I’m waiting for Laurel, but she’s running late - though you probably knew that, didn’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I have a feeling that for the first time, you finally that control that you’ve been so desperately desiring back.” 

“My ship is fixed,” Rip concedes, though he knows she means more than that. So much more than that, layers upon layers.

She accepts that much.

“Congrats,” Sara says sounding like she sincerely means it. Which doesn’t make things any easier. “Look, I know the last time we met things weren’t the best-”

“The last time for me was 2005.” 

She stops, gives him an odd sort of look. “Right, things don’t go in order for you… The first time, it was 2007, right?”

“No,” he shakes his head. Though he can remember that time clearly, how shocked he had been to be where and when he was that he had acted poorly enough that it was no wonder she thought 2007 was the first time. “1997 was first. 2007 was second, though I was handling it rather poorly.” 

“Oh gee,” Sara replies sarcastically, “I wonder why.”

“Sara, I didn’t-”

“No, it’s fine,” she cuts him off. “I’ve had time to think, and I get it. I had to join the League and become the Canary - I love being the Canary, and I would never have forgiven you for taking that away from me. So I get it.” 

The guilt is still there. Eating him away, but he pushes it aside. 

When she speaks up again it is back with the lightness from before. “Okay, after that we have  São Paulo ?”

“High school,” Rip corrects, “Then  São Paulo .”

Sara’s smile is conspiratorial. Like there’s a secret known only between the two of them, “Well, at least we will always have  São Paulo .” 

He cannot bring himself to mirror her smile, not when he knows how this has to end, that Rio will be gone - just like all the rest of the times he’s stopped by in her life.

“I gave you the key in  São Paulo ,” Sara says, “Which means next is when you walked in on me and Ollie?”

“And what a horrifying experience that was,” Rip reminds her. 

“You could have knocked.”

“You told me specifically not to knock.”

“Well you wouldn’t have gotten to see my boobs if you knocked.” 

“Yes, because I clearly have never seen them before.” 

Sara lets out a faux-scandalized gasp, before losing herself to laughter, a laughter that Rip lets himself join in on. A brief moment of respite, allowing himself to enjoy where they are and everything they have before it's all gone.

It is a good feeling. 

He wishes he could live forever in this moment. 

Sitting across from Sara in a diner at the end of the time. 

The moment, as all moments must, inevitably ends. 

“When do we meet for the first time? Not 1997, but the very first time.” 

And there it is the topic he had slowly been trying to bring up.

“2016.” 

“That’s not long now.”

“No, it’s not,” Rip agrees. “The problem is, when we meet for the first time, you aren’t supposed to remember any of this.” 

His somber mood affects hers. He can see the light and joy dimming from her eyes as it shifts to confusion. 

“Don’t tell me it’s complicated,” she insists.

He doesn’t. Even though it would be so much easier if she could understand that. If you could just ignore all the details and focus on the results. 

“When we meet in 2016, for the first time, it is the first time for both of us. I had researched you, determined that you’ve done everything necessary within your current timeline - you survived a shipwreck, taught someone how to love, came back to life, you inspired purpose in the one who will continue your legacy -”  _ you died _ , “-and it was officially safe to remove you from the timeline without risking breaking the future.” 

“But,” she prompts, “There’s always a but.”

“But, when we meet, at a bar in 2016… When I recruit you to join my team of time travelers, I am a stranger to you. You’re wary of me, wary of yourself, and we have more disagreements than I can count-”

“Sounds like us.”

“-And for us, it is the first time. There’s no lifetime of memories and meddling for you to use a background, no advance knowledge of how time travel works, none of this. We become a team, we become partners, but we don’t do that because you’ve known me since you were a little girl.” 

Sara is silent for a while, like she is considering all of that. 

“What happens if you don’t change anything now?”

“I’ve mentioned time storms before? The reason my ship is damaged and the reason I am unable to get back to my team.”

Sara nods and he continues. 

“The storm has only gotten worse, and time storms are fueled by time paradoxes, much like the one meeting you again and again has created.” 

She puts on a strong face, as she asks, “So what do we have to do?” 

“Remember that pill I asked you to take years ago, after you took an accidental trip to the future. Well, I have one of those now-” he pulls the bag with the blue pill in it from his pocket.  “-You take this and it will be like none of this happened.”

“I won’t remember you at all?” 

“I’ve interfered enough that it can’t be that simple, others have seen me… It will be more like - I’ll be a vague memory of a friend from your college days.” 

“You deserve better than that,” Sara insists, but she takes the bag from him, opening it up. 

“We deserve better than that,” he corrects. “We deserve a future together, and as much as it hurts this might be the only way to get that.” 

Her voice cracks, the facade of strength falling away, to reveal the person underneath.  “I don’t want to lose you.” 

And Rip’s heart breaks all over again. 

There’s a burning in his eyes, and he has to look away from her, has to otherwise he will lose his nerve. A part of him wants to give it all up, say  _ fuck the rules of time travel  _ because Sara is here in front of him and he loves her. 

He suddenly needs to tell he this. 

The words tumble from his lips, not necessarily easy but true, the truest thing he’s ever said, “I love you.” 

When he looks at her now, he realizes that he is not the only one close to tears. 

They run down her cheek where she’s failing to rub them away, just speaks with a voice that still shakes. “It is this or all of time breaks? This or we never get to be together.” 

It is all he can do to nod.

If he speaks his voice will betray him. 

“I love you, Rip Hunter, I’ve loved you since I was ten years old.” 

“Sara-”

“I’ll never stop loving you, I know that now. This won’t change that, because some part of me, has always belonged with you.”

“I love you,” he says, because he could say those three words for the rest of his life and it would never be enough. 

She kisses him. 

Leans across the table to pull him towards her, and he goes willingly, bring his hands up to hld her steady and near to him. Putting everything he has into that kiss - every longing, every last regret, every not enough time. 

He’s crying now, not ashamed of it, whispering how much he loves her against her lips, as she returns the sentiment.

Not giving a damn for what they look like because at the moment the only place that exists in all of space and time is this table, and the only other person in the universe is the one he’s kissing. 

If nothing else they’ll always have this.

No -  _ he’ll  _ always have this and Sara-

Sara pulls back from him. Rubs her hands over her eyes finally to brush the tears away and steadies her features, “I’ll miss you,” she says, before grabbing the pill from the bag and bringing it to her lips. 

Then just like that it’s over. 

He wonders too late if this really was worth it. 

Losing _ her _ , this version of Sara who does love him and who he loves in return, to reset the timeline. 

To be back at the beginning, back to where he was before he left the Legends and got on that jumpship. 

To be just okay.

It is too late to stop the inevitable.

Instead he watches as  _ his _ Sara turns into someone else, the shift in her features, from the sad woman who loves him, into a canary disguised as a human being. To someone who pushes their pain down and doesn’t let herself get attached too easily. 

When she opens her eyes, she is nearly that Sara he met in a bar in 2016. 

The smile she gives him is fake. 

A fake smile for an old friend she barely remembers. 

He wills his voice to remain steady as he asks, “You okay?”

She nods a little bit, still slightly confused, but the pill is putting fake memories in place for her. Of the friend from college she happened to run into by chance at a diner.  

“Yeah, so that was weird-” she shakes her head like she can shake the fog of fake memories away. She can’t they’re stuck in there now.

And Rip can still feel the impression of her kiss on his lips.

Can still feel the pain of heartbreak in his chest. 

“Anyways,, I-”

The bell over the diner’s door rings before she can finish that statement and Rip follows her gaze to the door, where Laurel Lance enters right on cue. 

Time for him to exit Sara’s life.

“I should leave you to your dinner, but it was good too see you again.” 

“Yes,” Sara insists, fake smile still in place. “We should catch up again sometime. How long did you say you were you in Starling for?”

“Just the night.” 

“Well, I’m sure we’ll find a time later. Maybe I’ll visit you in Central?” 

“That would be nice,” he says, like he means it. “Until next time, Miss Lance.”

“Sara.”

“Sara,” he concedes, as always.

He steps away from her and tries to remember how to breathe.

Puts one foot in front of the other, reassures himself that it is all worth it.

That he’s going back to the team now.

That he’s going back  _ home _ . 

That he’s not going to regret this for the rest of his life. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next up is the epilogue, thanks for sticking around this long.


	10. Epilogue - 2017

“I can’t leave you lot alone for ten minutes, honestly.”

It’s 2017.

Or it’s supposed to be.

The raging time storm and twisted buildings and dinosaurs make it a bit hard to tell. But his team is here -  the Waverider is crashed in the middle of a park, half the city is on fire, and he nearly collides with a overly excited Nate upon stepping out of the jumpship - and Rip is exactly where he belongs.

A feeling that really truly sinks in when there’s Sara in front of him, bo staff in hand to fend off dinosaurs with a wild smile on her face. “Oh come one, it’s been at least an hour.”

Rip pushes down the pain that comes from the Sara he left behind.

And focuses on the Sara in front of him.

 _His_ Sara.

“A whole hour,” he replies, with a tone that is more fond than the sarcastic it is meant to be. “It took you a whole hour to break time? I’m impressed. That might be a new record for us.”

“I knew you couldn’t stay away for long-”

“Yes, well, I was never far from you,” he says, meaning so much more than she can understand.

Sara doesn’t take it for more than a teasing comment, a hint at the unspoken thing that he had walked away from what felt like ages ago for him but was merely an _hour_ for her.

He lets himself be pulled into a quick hug, not much, because there is still a battle raging around them.

She says, “Welcome back, Captain Hunter.”

And he echoes the sentiment a moment later, “Glad to be back, Captain Lance.”

It’s a good hug, a solid hug, one, Rip leans into for all the support that it can offer him.

He is still hit by that awareness the one that has plagued him since he left the ship, that he loves the woman in his arms. There is a lot they’re going to have to work on - the team and saving all of time coming first - but there will be time for that.

And he knows now that the feeling in his chest won’t change, that it isn’t wrong.

 The moment is interrupted before Rip can linger, a voice coming through their comm units “After this, we’re still going to Aruba, right?” . He watches as Sara pulls back from him, rolls her eyes like this is a long story Rip is missing the details of it.

There’s a lot for both of them to catch up on.

Until then he listens somewhere over the noise - over the sound of _dinosaurs_ and fire crackling and buildings falling down and the team working together and everything he’s missed desperately - as he makes eye contact with Sara.

Sara, who winks at him like there’s a secret just between the two of them before saying, “No can do. After this, Rip owes me a trip to Paris.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, you guys have reached the end! Now, it's my turn to give a few thank yous to all the amazing people that made this fic happen (like can you all believe? I finished a long fic? I didn't believe I could do that and here we are!). 
> 
> First off, to the twitter squad, you know who you are, who encouraged me to try writing something longer than my usual. Who let me tweet abut random lines, scenes, possible plot plans and were encouraging - or in many cases said "Jess No". And also who were there and helped develop the "majoring in bar tending and blowjobs" line which is so college Sara who knew. 
> 
> Secondly, to the various people I had look over the fic and yell at me about typos, you all are the real MVPs for making this comprehensible.
> 
> Thirdly (?), a specific shout out to my favorite [ avocado](https://avocadodo.tumblr.com) (lol), who made not one but TWO pieces of art for this fic and is basically the reason I cry like ?? Can you believe how amazing of an artist Maya is? Are you all aware?
> 
> Lastly, to you! That's right, you the reader of this fic! Thank you for reading along - and if you left a comment feel 1000 more thank yous coming your way, because if it was not for the support of those amazing comment-ers this fic may have never actually been finished. Each supportive comment made me want to write more and to keep telling this story and you guys have no idea but basically you all mean the world to me. 
> 
> Bless you all!
> 
> As always, and as a reminder, if you want to find me over on tumblr to talk about Time Canary or any other ship we have in common, I'm over there at [ plinys ](http://plinys.co.vu/) !


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